#[ also woo go me just in time for DID awareness day to not have ended ]

[expressionbean]

an anonymous ask that got eaten when i posted a few minutes ago but was in my google docs as a backup (thank god):

"Please please forgive me if this is too forward, but your Carrd mentions that you have DID. I have OSDD myself, and I used to love roleplaying but ever since getting the diagnosis I feel like I have to choose one or the other because a lot of people think that CDDs are "roleplay" in and of themselves. Do you have any advice on how to get over that? Has the Tumblr roleplay scene been accepting? Do you often get fakeclaimed?

Thank you so so much for being here! I love your blogs and your writing. 💛"

hi anon! this is super super late, but i wanted to be thorough and i wanted to think carefully about what i say. i hope you're still around to see this and also, welcome to the RPC!

often, people do tend to think a lot of people with CDDs are "roleplaying". really, we're not, but that isn't what you came to ask.

and the stigma sucks, like it REALLY sucks. people with CDDs really aren't allowed to enjoy anything without a bunch of guys on reddit accusing us of literally whatever they can reach for. (usually faking or violence, but i digress)

i'm really still getting over a similar issue myself. it's so so so difficult to openly even enjoy a piece of media (including with other fans of a media), much less create anything and post it. i was formerly almost exclusively a discord and amino PM roleplayer - it's a small bit easier if i am not as open about what i'm doing.

i don't know how recent your diagnosis is (and it's none of my business), but i received mine years ago (2019 if i recall correctly) and it took until this summer for me to dip my toes into the water with the tumblr RPC. i can't remember exactly what compelled me to, but i ended up stumbling across my now-friend kira's blog. he seemed very friendly, so i sent an ask to go over what the heck i needed to do to get acclimated to the community.

i didn't really expect as kind of an answer as i got. i expected maybe some polite, generic thing but it was more than that. it was welcoming.

i was still scared though - i had a lot of things that were making me intimidated. i didn't have pretty formatting or stunning icons or banners or any of that stuff. i just had my writing, my amnesia, and my visual impairment.

and boy, did i not want my friends who know about my DID to know a damn thing about me having interests in media and, even more terrifying, my acquaintences in the RPC to know i have DID. i felt like i had to keep those two things almost totally separate, even though they're both pretty significant.

roleplay is an important creative outlet for me, but DID affects almost every facet of my life (as trauma disorders tend to do). it simply isn't sustainable to keep dividing myself up and hiding parts of myself from one group or the other out of fear of being judged.

i'm still working through that, in all honesty. my whole point in rambling is to show i relate hardcore to this ask, and i'm standing with you in solidarity.

anyway, i eventually (recently) decided enough is enough with being scared of a loud, shitty minority. it's not fair to let people who hate me just for existing dictate what i do for fun. identity politics and cringe culture should die.

i wouldn't tell people they're to be excluded from roleplay for being autistic or bipolar.

just the same, i don't really think it's a normal thing (even on reddit hate groups) for people to say i can't enjoy cooking because i have DID, or that i can't be a musician because i have DID.

roleplay is a hobby just the same as cooking or music, and DID is a mental illness just the same as bipolar. why shouldn't people be allowed to partake in their interests? just because strangers on the internet say not to for whatever ridiculous reason they've come up with on this fine saturday?

ultimately, they should! they should be able to appreciate and express all facets of themselves as freely or as privately as they want to.

obviously, i don't advise blasting your entire identity, location, etc. on tungle dot hellsite or anything unsafe like that, but you get my point.

your diagnosis is just words on paper - nothing's changed fundamentally except having a name for what's been going on. if you need permission, though, here it is: you are allowed to pursue things that bring you joy. you can make a blog and start roleplaying here. it's okay to do that. you are just the same as every other person here and just as worthy of writing with them.

as for more advice, here's some:

• the block button is to be used freely. liberally. you're the curator of your online space - it's fine to make it safe for yourself.

• the tumblr RPC, at least from what i myself have experienced from june 2022 until now, won't bite you. obviously, YMMV, but many people here are very kind and accepting. (staring lovingly at my "amestris no more" pals and all my other mutuals)

• i have not been fakeclaimed by the tumblr RPC from what i can remember. and personally, if it happens, i'd go to my favorite piece of advice: fuck 'em. no one behind a screen is going to know you better than you do! if someone's putting forth time and effort to hurt others, are their words really worth taking to heart?

• remember that it's your hobby, your writing, your space. you deserve that. do what you need to in order to make peace with those facts in yourself.

• remember that a hobby cannot invalidate you or take away what you've been through. hobbies are for your enjoyment.

• you can block triggering topics from appearing! i advise it.

• remember that there are people who will love you just for being yourself! i am one of them! i have so so so much love to hand out to people - please, come and write with me if things are compatible. i would love to see what you have. i'm sure my friends would too. you deserve a space here if you want one.

[bloodiedrogue]

THE ROGUE TAX (2)

SUMMARY: Fed up with paying Astarion to pick all the locks, you force yourself to learn the hard way.

PAIRING: Astarion & Female Reader (reads as Gender Neutral but future chapters will be femme focused, just a heads up!)

WORD COUNT: 2,635

WARNINGS: Short nightmare sequence, too much sexual tension, slight mentions of a handkink, inappropriate lock pick teaching.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know I'm posting these super early but day two of the Haunted Hoedown! This time the prompt is "finders keepers!" I honestly had so much fun with this one, so hopefully all the new Astarion fans that've followed me in the last day enjoy? Love you guys. :))))

Also I was originally going to make all of these challenge fics separate but I've since decided to make it more of a connected fic so... that's a thing now? I'll link the last chapter below!

CHAPTER LIST / MASTERLIST / NEXT CHAPTER

-

“I wasn’t aware you were so proficient at lock picking.” 

You smirk at Astarion’s false praise, busying your hands against the lock’s mechanism. You’ve only been at it for five or six, maybe seven tops but you can already tell it’ll be a while. The lock itself is tough; covered in a layer of thick rust. Plus, being that it’s a chest and not a door, it’s a bit more advanced than you’re used to.

“Yes, well, not all of us are vampires that can woo their way through a padlock.” 

In response, Astarion laughs, throwing his head back so dramatically that from the corner of your eye, it looks as if he’s lost his head for a moment. “You do realize who you’re talking to, correct?”

You hum out a response and push the short hook further in, feeling the pressure of a loose pin hit the end. When that happens, you grin to yourself and slide closer to the chest, biting your bottom lip in excitement. 

Over the last few weeks, you and the rest of the group had come upon some interesting findings. A cave inside a well, a few hidden cellars around the surrounding the goblin camp, a hidden chest or two. At first, it was exciting, getting to experience the joys of a good treasure hunt but quickly such feelings fell once you discovered how difficult it was to break into said things without the help of Astarion and his seemingly magic hands.

“I know you’re excited to prove yourself, darling, but why don’t you let me finish things off, hm? It’ll go a lot quicker.” 

You shake your head and continue your ministrations, carefully pushing the hook further in, feeling that alleviated pressure of another pin. “I’m tired of relying on you and your bloody rogue tax.” 

After agreeing that Astarion would just pick every lock your party found for a price, it was evident he was more than willing to take more than he was owed. Saying things like I did all the work or you wouldn’t be here if not for me, it was obvious he was exploiting you. Using his roguish charms to earn himself a bigger cut despite doing next to nothing else. 

It was frustrating, to say the least. Another minor annoyance to add to his long list of negative personality traits, and lately you were determined to combat it. To learn the trade for yourself so that every piece of treasure found could remain solely yours. 

“I’m sure everyone is but that’s the price you pay for a professional.” 

You roll your eyes and continue to fiddle, feeling his gaze glued to the positioning of your hands —how your fingers tighten and twist around the metal instrument. 

You’d be lying if you said it didn’t make you at least a little bit nervous —having his eyes on you. Across your palms, you can feel the slick of sweat collecting with each new movement, while behind you, you can practically feel Astarion’s judgement throughout, silently picking apart all of your mistakes. 

“You’re doing—“

You shush him angrily before he can continue, knowing he’s trying to break your concentration. Knowing that he thinks that if he can prove to be enough of a distraction you’ll end up slipping up and giving in. 

“I was just going to tell you about the wonderful job you’re doing.” His tone is laced with sarcasm. Drenched in a thick layer of impatience that has you groaning under your breath. 

“Isn’t there someone else you can bother?”

“No.”

You know there is. In the other room of the abandoned building you currently find yourselves in, at least four other people are rooting through the rubble. Most likely they’re stationed in their usual areas. Gale’s probably next to the stack of bookshelves with Karlach, telling her all about his collection back at the camp while Wyll and Shadowheart are searching through the cellar in hopes of more wine. 

“You sure?”

For a moment you debate telling him to go keep watch with Lae’zel just so that he’ll shut up but the thought dissipates once you feel him flop onto the floor beside you with a groan. 

“Everyone else is so dull,” he complains. His line of slight flickers between your face and hands, watching the way they remain almost too still as he speaks. “They’re all do this do that, and for what?”

You shrug your shoulders ever so slightly, unsure of what he means.

“They’re all living for other people, darling. Other causes. Everything they do serves a higher purpose and for that reason alone, they’re boring.”

Despite your previous determination your hands release themselves from the padlock before you find yourself readjusting —moving to plop down next to him. “You think everyone’s boring because they’re selfless?”

“Predictable,” he corrects, pointing a loose finger in your direction. “All of them talk too much about a future that may not even come considering we’re infected and have little idea on how to remedy the situation.” 

You’re not sure where this rant is coming from but you welcome it considering it’s been weeks since you’ve had a normal conversation that didn’t revolve around mapping or looting or combat. Weeks since you’ve taken a moment to learn about the people you find yourself in constant contact with. 

“Some people just don’t like looking back.” 

There’s a hint of surprise in his eyes when you respond as if he wasn’t expecting such an answer. Or really, maybe an answer at all. All at once his face seems to rise in thought, taking a moment to absorb the words before he hums in response, pursing his lips. “Yes, well, I suppose some people don’t have a past worth running from.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

The tadpole behind your eye wriggles for his attention before you can even think to suppress it. Working to pull him in as you stare at one another, narrowing your eyes at the sudden cerebral contact. At first, he’s reluctant. You can feel the pushing sensation suggesting that you stop. That you should stick to the confines of your own mind rather than pestering him, but quicker than you can move away to agree, it’s as if you’re sucked back in again. Pulled by the very thread of your own brain matter to see flashes of a life you assume to be his.

The first thing you see is candlelight. A flickering of warm hues that dance across wooden interiors. It’s almost dizzying the way the light shifts across your vision, forcing you to close your eyes. Next to you, you can hear Astarion breathing heavily. Deep inhales followed by even deeper exhales that you swiftly use as a metronome to carry your focus. To aid your tadpole’s connection. 

Swallowing hard, you listen to the beats of his breath, feeling them take over your chest as the vision in front of you grows to reveal bits of cobblestone. In the background, you can hear the faint sounds of scuttling feet. The dripping of water. A hungry growl followed by an even hungrier gnaw of flesh that squelches on your tongue. 

You can taste the iron —feel the fur and bones of an unknown animal brush against your lips and gums. All of it swirls around your mouth like a tornado of overstimulating sensations, forcing the vision to pass as you reach for your throat, coughing up nothing but your own spit despite how real it feels. 

It’s apparent then what Astarion means. That some people aren’t always blessed with the privilege of running away. That people like him don’t have the means of calling upon allies to aid them through the awful shit that is reality. 

Even with such little context, you can sense through his tadpole that he’s alone in this life. Alone before the Illithid —alone now. And more than likely, he’ll be alone after it’s all over, in death or otherwise. 

Rubbing your throat —trying your best to get rid of the tainted feeling of skin and bone from your mouth, you feel empathy rather than sympathy. An understanding of his words as you look toward him, noticing the far-off look in his eye before he blinks and travels back.

“I only showed you that to save the explanation,” he says, and whether or not it’s true you merely just nod, welcoming the silence. The tranquil hush of two people attempting to navigate the other. 

It doesn’t last long. In between, there are a few moments of background noise. The sound of echoing footsteps and muffled voices. You know it’s the others looting just as you should be, but neither of you moves to join until Astarion eventually clears his throat, signalling change. 

“Anyway, they’re all in their own worlds, coasting on the wings of optimism.” He flicks his hand around the air while rolling his eyes. “It’s disgusting and partly why I choose your company above theirs.” 

Letting yourself fall back into your usual, somewhat antagonistic rhythm, you give him a curious look. “Partly, huh?”

“Don’t get too excited,” he quips, the edge of his lip twitching into that usual grin of his. “The other part is the potential of your blood, darling.”

“Ah yes. And here I was assuming you were just following me around so that you could steal my treasure.”

Both of your eyes move back to the unbroken padlock. It’s the only thing in this room that seems to be worth either of your time and Astarion knows it. It’s why he’s been so keen on your failure. 

“You know, I could help you if you like. Show you a thing or two so that the next time this happens you don’t have to rely on me.”

It’s tempting, even if you know that you’ll be taxed to all hell. Whatever spoils you find will ultimately be cut in half and, more than likely, he’ll sweeten the deal for himself by claiming first pick. 

“What’s the price?”

He shoots you a look of offence, clutching his chest. “My dear, I’d never dare put a price on the education of thievery.”

You hold back a grin, pressing your lips together, watching the way he quickly springs into action, motioning for you to hand him your tools. When you do he begins to explain the process, showcasing all the tips and tricks against the air with careful precision. Which would be helpful if you weren’t so focused on his hands rather than his words. On the way they curl around the handles of your tools, tightening with every gesture performed. 

Astarion’s got nicer hands than most. Long and thin and surprisingly well-manicured for someone who spends most of his time in the forest or drinking the blood of unsuspecting animals. And guiltily enough staring at them so intently just reminds you of that night he drained your neck. 

You can still feel the pressure of his fingers against your head. The way they roughly cupped you like a goblet of wine. Despite the fear in that moment, you’re now able to look back at that memory almost fondly. A moment of potential weakness for you somehow became a moment of trust for him and as a result, here you were now, acting almost friendly amid a terrible situation. 

It makes you grin, prompting Astarion to stop his explanation and narrow his eyes. 

“Are you even listening?”

“Hm?”

There’s a knowing glance that befalls his face then. A transition of clarity that has his mouth opening and closing before he hands you your tools. “Might be best if we take a more hands on approach.” 

You look at him confused, letting the hooks in your hand lazily rest in your palm as you watch him hop to his knees and begin to guide you. 

“I want you to do exactly what you were doing before, alright? Use the hook to push the pins.” 

Despite your continued confusion, you follow his position by kneeling in front of the chest and popping the hook into the hole, digging around the darkened space until you feel the shift of that first pin. 

“Got it?” You spare him a glance and a nod, watching him crawl towards you, positioning his chest firmly against your back before reaching out to hold your wrists. “Now, take that other hook of yours and situate it at the base of the barrel.”

Doing exactly that, you feel his fingers slowly slip over yours, navigating you through the trials of getting that second pin to shift as the barrel turns in your grasp. At first, it’s difficult. Mostly because all you can focus on is the breath that hits the side of your face. The heat of the air that travels down your spine in nervous waves you’re almost certain he can feel. But then you’re reminded that you’ve been here before; stuck within his heated grasp. 

“That’s it. Just like that.” 

You’re practically holding your breath as you find that third pin, feeling Astarion’s hand shift you in the right direction before you lose it at the last second. Ever so gently, his chest shifts upwards against your back so that he can rest his chin on your shoulder to get a better look. A newfound weight that makes you close your eyes and release a bit of air from your nose, realizing how intimate this is. 

Somehow it feels even more personal than letting him feed off of you. Perhaps because the bloodsucking was for his own benefit, knowing Astarion, moments like that where he’s able to take rather than give mean next to nothing to him. They’re just moments of manipulation. A series of tactical steps he takes to get whatever he wants whereas this is different. This is for you. 

You’re not sure how to describe it other than an offering of trust. Maybe it’s a token of appreciation for letting him consume. Maybe it’s nothing more than a game to make you squirm beneath his grasp. Either or, it’s an experience you know you’ll be thinking of for days to come, attempting to decipher its intent.

“Once you feel that final pin I want you to ease it in gently, alright? Be delicate.” 

You offer him no response as you listen to his words. If you did, you’re certain he’d make some offhand comment that would only further the lewdness of it all, grinning like the mischievous prick he is. 

“After that, you should feel a little shift and —voilà!” 

The chest clicks open. Your breath releases in a long, much-needed stream but Astarion makes no effort to move from your frame. Instead, he continues to cling to your hands, angling his chin so that when you eventually look at him you’re practically touching noses. 

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“It’s that easy?”

Slowly but surely he slips from your frame with a nod, his hands sliding across the expanse of your sleeves, coating your skin in a wave of goosebumps as he moves to stand. “Yes, but keep it hush, hush. Wouldn’t want the others to find out, would we?”

You shake your head, a small smile creeping across your lips as you then turn towards your reward, gripping both edges of the lid before pushing it up. Inside there are only a few items. A few spell scrolls and some fabric but it’s enough to get you excited regardless, realizing that it’s yours.

“Not bad for your first go.” Peeking over your shoulder, Astarion watches as you sift through everything carefully, unrolling each scroll to read the details before looking back up and raising a brow. 

“You sure there’s no tax?” you ask, but all he does is laugh and shake his head. 

“Finders keepers, darling. As I promised.” 

[sunlighthroughthe-ashes]

wow, this episode was wild from start to finish — the makgeolli scene was ludicrous, sol's elder brother is annoying, and HOW DARE they end it on such a cliffhanger!!!

that said, i LOVED the parallels of sol switching the fan on for sunjae while he was sleeping just like he did for her in previous episodes (it was such a lovely, subtle bit of cuteness) — him unconsciously covering her hand with his own was an added bonus.

that boy is aware of her EVEN IN HIS SLEEP.

i think it's a testament to byeon woo-seok's acting that he's able to communicate the tenderness of his feelings for sol so well with just his eyes — i keep mentioning this, but there's a literal reverence in his gaze when he looks at sol that's simply uncanny. his whole face just softens when he looks at her!!!

kim hye-yoon matches this well with the way her face lights up when she's watching sun-jae — her smile is pure RADIANCE when she's looking at him.

there's such genuine respect and adoration in her expression that it just warms my heart.

sunjae confessing his feelings all in a rush was such a bittersweet experience for me — first love is often so sweet but also overpowering and bewildering — you can see from the beginning of the story how helpless sunjae is in the wake of his emotions for sol.

he put her into music and made her memory eternal!

having said that, i was NOT a fan of the way sol rejected sunjae at the hospital. i understand her reasons (since she's uncertain over her fate after the day of her accident / her having to return to the future) but she didn't have to be that harsh.

the poor boy even said "don't be so cold" 🥺

and the fact that she realized she was his first love and the song was about her — only to get kidnapped right after: EVIL move on the writers' part.

i think she'll manage to get out of this without getting paralyzed again (maybe with sunjae's help) — that's why the promo showed her walking in the future.

i know a little about the webtoon, so i'm pretty sure sunjae DOES remember her, he's just behaving coldly because she rejected him / or because after the accident past!sol returned and didn't remember him and he distanced himself ever since then.

either of those reasons would also explain his refusing not to do the movie that sol's presumably directing.

as far as sol trying to stop him from coming to the bridge — she probably realized something to do with his death. it might be related to her (and the taxi-driver) so she's trying to stop sunjae from meeting her and putting everything into motion again.

i think the first time she went into the past, it was to remember sunjae, the second was to prevent her accident, and the third will be her finally stopping sunjae's death.

hate to say it, but i think sol will have to go through sunjae dying again before she goes back into the past for the third and final time (probably when they're in university) and saves him at last.

she better save him and make sure they have a happy ending, otherwise this viewer is going to become a LOVELY HATER. XD

NOW HOW WILL I SURVIVE UNTIL NEXT MONDAY??? 😭

[nottoonedin]

An ALNST Theory/Hypothesis/Over-analysis/Interpretation of events

AKA: Me slowly descending into madness over an animated web series-

(Btw this is mostly just for fun, don't take it too seriously lol)

(TW: Death, Blood)

Long post warning:

I assume we've all seen the newest posts that Vivinos has put out on their YT community tab (or wherever you get your ALNST updates), and the one that everyone is obviously talking about is the post titled <CURE>

And.. yeah, of course, just goes to show that Round 6 is just around the corner (I am screaming internally) and the attention is going to be focused on Ivan and Till, and how their story will progress (or end, depending on if someone's gonna die, which seems likely, unfortunately).

But the post that really caught my attention.. was this fucking post:

When I first saw it, in my mind I thought ''Haha, how cute and goofy! This is exactly how I saw their dynamic!'' and went on with my day.

But after thinking about it for a while, my brain decided to think up this wonderfully awful thought:

''What if Hyuna (unintentionally) had a hand in what happened to Hyun-woo?''

Now, at first, this sounds fucking crazy. The general consensus (from what I've seen) is that Luka killed Hyun-woo. But I do see some parallels between this post and the incident in Round 5 which might help explain what actually happened, but first:

Why I don't think Luka would have been able to kill Hyun-woo:

Luka is DEFINETELY not known for his muscles or strength, I mean look at him:

He's like a sickly Victorian child, not to mention his asthma, chronic migraines and heart disease. I don't believe Hyun-woo has any health problems (not that I know of anyways), so I feel Luka would have a hard time trying to push Hyun-woo over so he'd fall onto a rock. To put it simply, Hyun-woo could most likely beat Luka in a fight, unless someone interfered in some way...👀

Luka's ''fighting'' tactic:

With the parallels between The Trio doodle and Round 5, I've noticed there's a pattern with how Luka gets rids of his ''opponents'', be it on stage or outside of it (*cough* Hyun-woo *cough cough*).

He initiates the attack, it being mentally or physically depending on his opponent. He's subtle about it however, the only one being aware of his antagonism being the one he's antagonising, preserving his perfect, can-do-no-wrong persona.

2. Obviously, the opponent retaliates. But, of course, Luka expects this, it's what he wants, after all. He knows he'll be seen as the victim by onlookers. How could anyone hurt such a precious, weak, defenseless little guy??🥺🥺He doesn't even bother to fight back at all (may be too weak to).

3. A stronger force, seeing Luka in ''distress'', steps in and takes care of the attacker (the opponent), avenging Luka, who they see as the victim. He isn't the type to do it himself, letting others do his dirty work.

Now, let's apply this to the flashback in the All-In MV..

What may have happened to Hyun-woo:

Luka may have said something to Hyun-woo that deeply distressed/angered him, or perhaps Hyun-woo knew about what Luka did to Hyuna.

2. Angry, Hyun-woo attacks Luka.

(I'd also like to note that in this frame, Luka looks more like he's just had someone pulled off him, rather than he's just attacked and pushed someone over onto a rock.)

3. Hyuna finds Hyun-woo attacking Luka and, naturally seeing Luka as the victim, tries to break them apart (which would have been hard if Hyun-woo was super pissed). There's a struggle, and.. well...

Hyuna accidentally kills Hyun-woo, which doesn't bother Luka. Just means his opponent has been eliminated. As far as he's concerned, Luka wins.

Final Thoughts:

Does this theory leave a lot of questions? 100%. For example, if this theory was true, why would Hyuna be so angry at Luka? Does she later find out about his manipulative nature? How? On the stage perhaps? I find this unlikely, however, since I don't believe Hyuna ever went on stage and escaped beforehand, due to a post Vivinos made a while back:

Can this theory be easily debunked? Oh, ABSOLUTELY (I hope it is debunked in canon, to be honest lol). But it does give ideas for some angsty fanfics, I believe hehehe-

For real though, Alien Stage is all up to interpretation. Some questions may never be answered. It leaves room for different ideas, which is one thing I love about the series. <3

Thank you for reading my batshit little ramble/theory!! Hope ya'll have an awesome day/night!

[chloe-caulfield94]

Bay Max has a talk with Other Max

This is going to be a part of a larger fanfic, so if it piques your interest, stay tuned. It's also quite darker than what I usually write, so be warned.

-----------------------------

Max went back to the scene of her crime. The filthy bathroom corner she had showered with her tears five days prior. The filthy bathroom corner that she had cowered in, waiting for Chloe’s heart to be pierced by a bullet. She touched the fire alarm she was supposed to use to save a life, but she had chosen not to. She turned to walk away and she noticed the moustache and glasses scribbled on the mirror. She walked over and touched the graffiti, repeating her movements from Monday.

“You were right. Something was mocking you. It wasn’t the universe, though. I highly doubt the universe is even aware a bug like you is currently crawling on its skin. It was me. I’ve been mocking you” – Max heard her own voice coming from the mirror. She noticed that her reflection not only wasn’t mirroring her movements, but it was even dressed differently – in her usual grey hoodie and pink t-shirt instead of the black dress she was wearing.

Max furrowed her brows. “You again? You told me to sacrifice Chloe. You told me she wasn’t worth my love and friendship. And that spectacle at the diner? All the townspeople accusing me of murder? Bravo. I especially liked Joyce telling me that I’m taking her away from her family if I don’t sacrifice Chloe. But her family is Chloe! Such a nice touch. How twisted do you have to be to even come up with something like that?”

“Why are you making fun of my tricks? You fell for them. They worked. You did what I told you to do”.

“Yes, you bullied me into killing my own best friend. I did what you told me was the right thing to do. Even though by doing so I killed my soul as well. What more do you want from me?”

Her reflection chuckled. “Bold of you to assume you had a soul to begin with. And our talks have never been about me telling you to do the right thing. Have you considered the possibility that I simply enjoy seeing you squirm?”

“Who … what are you?”

“I’m a part of you that contains all of your self-loathing, self-doubt, guilt and resentment. Or … perhaps I’m a demon sent to torment you. You always listen to Samuel’s talks about spirits roaming around Arcadia Bay. You constantly fall for various ‘woo’ you find on the Internet. You’re functionally an antivaxxer. I’m sure you’re more than capable of believing in demons”.

“So what now? You told me I should sacrifice Chloe and now that I did you’re going to say I shouldn’t have?”

“More or less. I’m always telling you things that make you feel bad. But before you say I’m evil, that’s just what I am. You could say it’s my job. I am a part of you that makes you feel sad. It’s not my fault you let me grow so strong. Stronger than all your other parts put together. You know, the nightmare you had when Chloe was hauling your unconscious body to safety was the first time we met face to face. But it was not the first time you heard my voice. No, for years I whispered in your ear. I told you not to return Chloe’s phone calls. I told you to respond to her texts with the most non-committal nothings under the sun. I told you not to write her letters. I told you not to reach out to her even when you already were in Arcadia Bay. And we both know for a fact you wouldn’t have contacted her, ever, had she not saved your ass in the parking lot, don’t we? And we both know that had you contacted her right after you arrived in town, six weeks before she was murdered, her fate would’ve turned out differently and she wouldn’t have found herself on the receiving end of Nathan’s gun. No Storm, no dead best friend, had you just had the guts to reach out to her, you coward. Your cowardice killed people. You could only choose who it killed. But it was fatal nonetheless”.

“So you are responsible for all of this?”

“No, no, no! Don’t pin your wrong choices on me, Max! I only ever highlighted the options you had. But we always make choices as one. All parts of us together. It’s not my fault you constantly follow my advice. Think of me as of an attorney, defending a client who’s obviously guilty. I have to do this. It’s my job. So when the neglectful jurors return a not guilty verdict and the accused is released into the world to commit more evil, whose fault it is?”

“You can’t be a part of me. I‘m not a good person. But you … you’re a monster”.

“If I’m a monster, that makes you a monster as well, at least in part. And I’d say that you’re a monster in full. All your parts are monsters. It’s just that I’m honest about what I am. All your other parts, including the one I’m talking to right now, are in denial. Care to explain one thing to me? Why did you kiss Chloe when she dared you to on Wednesday morning, but then you immediately rewound time and didn’t kiss her for a second time? So you had all the fun of kissing her and she had none of the fun of being kissed by you? You used her body for your own pleasure but you made sure she got none of that pleasure back? At best that makes you a selfish lover. At worst that makes you … an artist. Like Jefferson and Nathan. You like posing others for your own pleasure, you steal moments from other people and you make sure they don’t remember those moments at all”.

“Shut up! I am nothing like them!”

“Oh really? How is what you did to Chloe different than what Nathan did to her? You used her for your own pleasure for five days and then you tossed her away like trash, making sure she would remember none of it. At least he was done with her in a single night. You took your sweet time with her. Oh, and another thing you have in common. You both murdered her”.

“I had to! You said so yourself!”

“You didn’t have to do anything. You chose to do that. You know he’s going to be released soon, right? I give it three years. And then Sean Prescott’s golfing buddies at the Oregon Supreme Court, you know, the ones whose election campaigns he financed, are going to overturn Nathan’s conviction. What a beautiful story they are going to tell! And the media is going to repeat it a thousandfold. A story of a promising, talented, handsome, well-mannered young man from a good family who had the misfortune of crossing paths with two whores. One junkie whore named Rachel, who overdosed despite Nathan’s best efforts to make her quit her drug habit. He probably even performed CPR on her once she OD’d. Alas, to no avail. But it does explain his DNA, if any is found on Rachel. And then there was a second whore. She got innocent little Nathan drunk and she dragged him to bed. A filthy gold digger, who just wanted to lay her grubby hands on his family’s well-earned wealth. And when she tried to violently extort money from him, he simply had to stand his ground. Ooh, ooh! I have idea for another juicy detail to this story! She wanted to extort money from Nathan because she was pregnant! Nathan, being a responsible young man, of course insisted on using protection, but she pricked the condom with a needle, like gold-digging whores do to accomplished men they want to entrap. I mean killing your pregnant mistress is perfectly legal. Haven’t you seen ‘Fatal Attraction’”?

Max vomited into the sink, violently. She had eaten very little that day, so it was mostly bile. It went out of her mouth and nose. She wiped her face with her sleeve. Leaning against the sink, she said hesitantly: “But … those are all lies. None of that is true”.

“Max, of course we both know the truth. Nathan murdered Rachel in the course of a ‘photo session’ he gave her. And he was … extra hands-on with her, wasn’t he? At least Jefferson didn’t insert himself into the pictures. But Nathan … half the pictures of Rachel we found in the Dark Room were of him groping her, kissing her, lying on top of her … I mean no wonder Jefferson killed him. He was furious Nathan treated his adolescent girlfriend that way. And we know why Chloe wanted hush money from Nathan. Because he drugged her and gave her a ‘photo session’ too. And she knew she would get zero justice by going to the Prescott-owned police department. You remember that cop who openly told you, in a crowded diner, that he and his buddies were taking money to look out for little Nathan? We know what she did was the only way for her to get any semblance of justice. That’s the truth. But the biggest problem with the truth is getting people to believe in it. Especially if they were bribed not to. You know, they are not going to use exactly the same story I just told you. No, they are probably going to use something even worse, something even more insulting to your dead best friend’s memory. You can run, but you cannot hide, Max. You can run to a place where the local news from Oregon don’t reach, like a hippie commune in the middle of Arizona. But sooner or later, those news are going to reach you. Hell, maybe you’ll learn of Nathan’s rehabilitation and of the awful crimes of Rachel and Chloe ten years after it makes the headlines here in Oregon. But you will hear about that. I can’t wait to see your face then. I can’t wait to hear how you try and fail to convince yourself it had to happen for the greater good”.

“But … there is evidence. Nathan’s real student record. The photograph of Chloe he kept in his drawer”.

“Too bad you only regained memories of those days you chose to erase today. Had you remembered anything on Monday, you could’ve told someone. But now? Those documents and photographs are long gone. The principal has been on the take from the Prescotts for years. He swept under the rug Nathan’s many violent outbursts and his drug peddling. What, you think he won’t sweep this under the rug? If only out of concern for his own skin? If Prescotts go down, Wells goes down with them. Come on, he let a violent, drug-addled boy attend Blackwell for years, instead of expelling him, like he should’ve. But we know only poor people get expelled, don’t we? Poor girls get expelled for a little graffiti in the parking lot. Rich boys don’t get expelled when they are caught selling drugs and beating other students up. Wells will never let anyone see Nathan’s real student record, the one he kept secret for so long. He will only show the fake one, the one painting a rosy picture of Prescott junior. And the photograph from Nathan’s drawer? Long gone. Taken by Wells himself or some other schmuck on the Prescott payroll. But don’t be too hard on yourself, Max. Who would you have told about this evidence? The insanely corrupt cops, who only arrested Nathan because they found him at the crime scene, smeared in his victim’s blood? They would’ve supressed or even outright destroyed all that evidence, too. You know, to keep those envelopes coming”.

Max kept breathing heavily, as if she was about to throw up again.

Her mirror image kept driving the knife ever deeper into Max’s heart: “Why are you so disgusted with all of that? Those are all consequences of the choice you made. You didn’t want to live with the Storm as the unintended consequence of your rescue of Chloe. And now you don’t want to live with Nathan’s impunity and the desecration of your best friend’s memory as the consequences of your choice not to save her. At some point you have to own the consequences of your actions, whatever they are. And why are you so disturbed at the thought of Nathan’s release? You have so much in common. Two artistic souls? And you already share such a deep bond. To have murdered someone together? To have the same blood on your hands? I don’t know if a deeper connection can be established between two persons. If you start writing him letters now, you can marry him the moment he is released. But I suggest you start writing now. Because there’s going to be a lot of competition. Hybristophilia is quite common among young impressionable women such as yourself. Especially if the murderer is cute and rich”.

Anger overpowered Max’s disgust. She banged her hand on the mirror and shouted: “Fuck you!”

“’Fuck me?’ You’re talking to yourself, Max. What does ‘fuck you’ even mean in this context? Are you announcing that tonight, once you’re all snuggled under your covers, you’re going to touch yourself? Are you going to think about your precious punk Chloe as you do so? Face it, what you felt for her wasn’t love. If you loved her, why did you never say it? She said it twice. She always said it just before you killed her. Because no matter the timeline, you always end up murdering her. And always with her dying breath she confesses her love for you. And you never reciprocate. Why? If you loved her, why didn’t you tell her that? ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to do this’ is not exactly a love confession. No, it’s what a butcher says to a sad-eyed calf they are about to slaughter. What you felt for her was lust. You realized you were already in your senior year and you wanted to go through a ‘bad girl phase’. And you did. A perfect ‘bad girl phase’. No messy breakup, no clinging. Everything just erased, like your browser history. If you didn’t want to lie you loved her, you at least could’ve told her she deserved your love and friendship and deserved to be alive. When she said she didn’t, you didn’t deny that. And by sacrificing her, you kinda proved her right on that point”.

Max once again banged on the mirror and screamed: “Stop it! I loved her! I still do! You are defiling the best, purest thing I’ve ever felt! That I will ever feel!”

Her reflection’s stern facial expression gave way to a malicious smile. Just like she said, she enjoyed seeing Max squirm. “And we both know why you lust for tall girls with tattoos and bright hair dye. Jefferson’s albums. The ones you loved so much. The ones which drew you to him. The ones which made you wish to be one of his students. The ones he shot in his Seattle days. The ones filled with girls from the local music scene. You loved how he captured them. The difference between you and him is that he grew bored of faux-punk sluts like that and moved on to decent girls from good families. But you continued to lust after low-hanging fruit. At least until you could try it. And when you saw your long-lost friend dressed just like those girls from Jefferson’s albums you’d thought about when touching yourself, you just had to possess her. So tell me, Max. This night, with your hand between your legs, are you going to think about her? Are you going to think about the oh so wet kiss you gave her just before you murdered her?”

“Shut up! Shut up, you monster!”

“I think you’re going to do just fine here at Blackwell. Now that the position of the school princess is confirmed to be vacant, you have a decent shot at taking it. You and Rachel are so alike. You both wanted to fool around with a cool punk rocker. But once you discovered that underneath that thin façade was a real girl, one with her own feelings and other messy things like that, who instead of constantly providing you with cheap thrills actually needed something from you, needed your love and care, you couldn’t throw her away fast enough. I wonder, what’s a more cowardly way of breaking up with someone? Leaving them a scribbled note or murdering them?”

“Shut up. Please, shut up” – Max pleaded quietly with her tormentor.

“Max, why are you even standing here, listening to me? You could’ve walked out that door the moment I spoke up. But you didn’t. Why? Because you know you deserve to hear all of that. You are simply accepting your just punishment. Because even though you want to delude yourself into thinking that you’re an everyday hero who saved their hometown, you know you are the monster. And something even worse. How do you call someone who makes a promise to love and protect another person, but then breaks that promise every single time? How about ‘oath breaker’? That does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

Max turned to walk away. She said in a resigned tone: “Enough. Maybe I do deserve to hear all of that, but I can’t take it anymore”.

“If you’re tired of my words, how about listening to someone else?”

Max heard her voice. Not her reflection’s. Her own voice coming from the mirror. And then she heard Joyce’s.

“I wish I was a better friend. I know Chloe doesn’t get many visitors”.

“Oh, Max. You’re Chloe’s best friend for a reason. You’re here exactly when she needs you”.

Max turned towards the mirror again and saw Joyce sitting in her bed. Then the image shifted and she saw William sitting at the table in the Prices’ living room. And once again she heard her own voice.

“William, I just want you to know, that whatever happens, I’ll always be here for Chloe. Always”.

“I know you will, Max” – replied William.

Max’s reflection editorialized: “Had they only known that by ‘being there for Chloe’ you actually meant murdering her”.

The image in the mirror kept shifting, showing her various moments from the week that never was. Max was being lashed with her own words. Bitter, burning tears ran down her cheeks.

“I’m with you to the end, Chloe. You know that”.

“Chloe, you’re priceless”.

“I never want to hurt you! Ever!”

“I always wanted my life to be special, an adventure. But not without you!”

“You are my number one priority now! You are all that matters to me!”

“It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I have to save Chloe!”

“Nobody is going to hurt Chloe ever again!”

The image shifted and Max was once again staring into the eyes of her reflection. Only it was a reflection of her thirteen year old self, in a similar black dress meant for funerals. The reflection said, in a high-pitched, childish voice:

“You don’t have to worry about anything changing. You’re dealing with so much other stuff. You don’t deserve any of this. Chloe, listen. Even if I never … Even if we’re moving for good ... We’re always together, okay? Even when we’re apart. We’re still Max and Chloe. I will always, always love you”.

Her words were punctuated by a deafening gunshot, so loud it made the mirror shake and Max’s ears hurt.

Thirteen year old Max kept speaking: “Because I will never abandon you, Chloe. I'll always have your back”.

Another deafening gunshot.

Her thirteen year old reflection had more to say: “You’re sick in the head, you know that? I said those things because I was a stupid brat and I didn’t actually mean any of that. I didn’t even know what it meant to love someone. But you … It wasn’t enough for you to make false promises to a nineteen year old Chloe. No, you had to go back in time and lie to a fourteen year old Chloe’s face as well”.

Max turned around, walked over to the fire alarm and retrieved the hammer she was supposed to use on Monday.

Walking back to the mirror, she saw her eighteen year old reflection holding a black notebook covered in colourful stickers.

“You really should give it a read. I don’t know why Joyce and David gave their daughter’s belongings to you of all people. That guy Eliot deserved it way more. You know, the one from kindergarten? At least he loved her. In a possessive, jealous way. But he loved her. Unlike you and Rachel. And he was in her life for way longer than you. The next time you’re going through your victim’s belongings, don’t stop at the pictures you took of her. They only show how you saw her. Read her diary instead. Learn how she saw you”.

Other Max opened the notebook and started reading aloud. Max was already next to the mirror, hammer in her raised hand. But when she heard what had been written, she couldn’t move: “The worst part is that even though we haven’t spoken in months, even though she habitually ignored my texts so much that I just stopped trying, even though I know, deep down, that she doesn't care about me anymore and that she probably has all new friends up in fucking Seattle ... I still miss her. If she came back tomorrow and said ‘hey Chloe, want to dress up like pirates and be stupid together?’, I would take her back in a heartbeat”.

Other Max showed Max the contents of the page. “See? And then she drew a heart and added ‘in a heartbeat’ once more. That’s what she thought of you, bleeding out on the floor. How she would take you back in a heartbeat if you just reached out. But you never did. She never saw you after William’s funeral. She never had the chance to take you back in a heartbeat. Because you never came back. And because you stopped her heart from beating. Forever”.

With an unarticulated scream, Max struck at the mirror. An avalanche of glass shards fell into the sink, mixing with bile. Max breathed heavily. Some of the things the other her said were obvious lies. That she didn’t love Chloe. That she was anything like Jefferson and Nathan. But other things … That she had broken her promise. That she had failed her friend. Max desperately wished those things were lies as well.

Her reflection, its voice distorted, as it was now coming from dozens of glass shards at the same time, dealt her a final blow: “Live with the consequences of your actions, Max. Or don’t. I’m fine either way”.

“Oh, I’m not going to live with them. But not in the way you want me to”.

“What, are you trying to tell me you’re going to find your courage and confidence? That part of you is all shrivelled up, almost dead. You’re never going to find her alone”.

“I’m not alone. I have my best friend to help me”.

Max walked over to the corner she had cowered in on Monday. She looked everywhere, but the photograph she had dropped five days earlier was nowhere to be found. She turned to the trash cans, picking them up and emptying them onto the floor. She knelt and started going through the piles of slimy garbage with her bare hands, begging whoever and whatever was listening for the butterfly picture to turn up. It didn’t.

[surplus-of-sarcasm]

31st Story, Part 2

TW: Blood, implied past captivity and torture, stitches, wound description, angst, corrupt system, issues regarding figure (brief), bruises, angst, knife, touch starvation

Part 1

Guess who's back with a hella long piece. vacay from college for some time with semester 1 over, woo! enjoyyy ��

“So how did you sleep?” the vigilante asked as she walked downstairs to find the villain sitting cross-legged on her couch. 

“Well,” he answered evenly, emotionlessness overtaking his tone as usual. It wasn't a complete lie; he'd slept better than he had in a long time, but his eyes had wrenched open a little after sunrise, even though he wasn't a morning person. He couldn't relax too much into this life, the knife he took shoved into the pocket of his sweatpants, but she didn't need to know that. 

“I'll make us breakfast,” she announced.

“I'll help you out,” he offered, even though he knew she could probably infer what his motives were. He still wasn't taking any chances anyway. 

She nodded curtly in response, leading him to the kitchen. And he'd almost wished someone had warned him about the whiplash of doing something so outlandishly casual with your enemy, as he watched her make a sandwich and soon enough followed suit, still hyper aware of the knives and the boiling water in the kettle. 

And of course, nothing was lost on Vigilante, even if she probably wasn’t half as nervous as he was, the half-frantic, wild animal wrapped in the poorly fitting garment of someone calm and collected. “Are you always this tense?” she questioned as she sat down at the table and he sat opposite from her.

“Just hungry,” he shot back smoothly, a seasoned liar. Sure, he technically was half-starved, trying to eat slowly just so he wouldn’t retch, but if that was the case, he would’ve relaxed when he ate.  

The vigilante said nothing as she took a bite of her sandwich, but her disbelieving eyebrow raise needed no further additions. 

The villain’s grip tightened on his mug as he worried his frayed bottom lip between his teeth,”What do you want? If you’re going to question every micro-gesture of mine, then why’d you bring me here?” His voice was hoarse with exhaustion, probably from all the screaming he couldn’t muffle, not that he cared.

“I get it,” the vigilante said placatingly, even though it was clear she was somewhat irritated. She wasn’t a goddamn bleeding heart just oozing compassion and patience, not that he expected any different. “You’re afraid of getting hurt.” 

“I am not afraid of crap, Vigilante.” It came out softer than he’d intended, almost as though he was the one trying to calm the situation, a new trait of people-pleasing a new and heavily despised survival skill he’d recently acquired. 

The vigilante wanted to argue, but she also knew that from the day she’d walked into his cell and pulled him out, that she’d been walking on thin ice. That the man in front of her wasn’t his normal, unflappable self that could dish out a lot worse than whatever she dared to throw at him, so for the rest of this tense, awkward breakfast, they both remained quiet. 

It had taken them about two hours of trepidation spent in the opposite ends of the living room for Vigilante to break the silence. “So, about the plan,” she started.

“Yeah?” he asked, now turning to face her. 

“We can’t fight her by traditional means. We don’t have the time to amass an army big enough to rival my sister’s own. The main thing we need to do is find some way to desecrate that shining image of hers,” she explained. 

The villain let out a low hum as though he was contemplating something, but the slight shift in the nature of his gaze indicated he’s noticed something. “Knocking your sister off of her pedestal is surely going to gain you some traction,” he noted. 

“I don’t care much for the spotlight,” she countered. 

“I know. But you seem to care about making sure your sister doesn’t have everything. Still, that isn’t the issue anyway.”

And again, he was right. There is something so utterly sickening of being born in someone’s shadow, of having all your power from someone else’s name. Vigilante was only formidable in people’s eyes because it was required of Superhero’s sister. Again, she’d never claimed to be dramatically selfless.

Still, she took note of how the villain made no effort at eye contact, his eyes trained on the pattern of her wooden coffee table, but she refrained from commenting. “Right. The general idea is, if the adoring public find out what she does to the people in her custo-”

The villain, in his most daring act of the day, had let out a sardonic snort. “Oh, save it. I don’t think you realise that how people like me are treated doesn’t really irk anyone. Because that’s how the world works, it’s easier like that. I’m not the most notorious, but it’s safe to say I’m ‘famous’ enough,” he made air quotations with his fingers, “People usually want to know about the trial, when it comes to people they’ve heard of, but no one gave a damn. No one cared to know I never really got a trial in the first place. Because they were just relieved that the Big Bad Guy was off the streets. Locked up somewhere. It doesn’t matter that my record says I’m guilty of crap I’ve never done. Because technically, I’ve committed my fair share of my crimes, what’s more to the pile? Hell, if it keeps me locked away for all eternity, then why not?” 

This time, the villain’s gaze was steely, his teeth gnashed together and his tone harsh, and yet before she’d even commented, the villain was quick to force the muscles of his face to work on pulling it into a blank expression, his hand going to his pocket. 

Where, unbeknownst to Vigilante, the knife from yesterday was. .  .

It took her a moment to register his words and realise he was right. The likes of Villain wouldn’t garner the sympathy of the same people that cheered when they were locked up, at every suffocating press conference where her sister’s airy voice seemed to ring in her ears. 

But how else was she supposed to rouse some sort of public outcry against her sister? She needed the key, the concept, the idea, and from that she could form a plan. It was why she thought of asking the villain in the first place. 

“Then what should we do to get people to notice?” 

The villain’s pale hand made its way out of his pocket, his expression still nearly unreadable. “Your sister’s clever. She’s almost untraceable, and uncovering her shady past would be difficult. Or actually, more difficult than having her do something terrible now.” 

“So you’re saying we somehow force her to commit some sort of terrible crime?” 

“Force is the wrong word. It wouldn’t be a choice she wouldn’t make on her own accord. And that’s our selling point. No one needs to make her pull underhanded crap because she’ll take that choice anyway. And from then, whatever it is you want to reveal is actually going to have a basis.” 

The villain straightened his posture, pulling his now slightly loose fitting hoodie down so straighten a wrinkle only for it to come down with a strange difficulty, like it was stuck to his skin, the man letting out a soft hiss. 

“You alright?” she asked. 

“Fine,” he answered curtly, getting up. He knew exactly why his jacket had stuck to his form in the first place, and he really didn’t need Vigilante’s supposed concern. There’s a lot worse he’d seen in his life, in those three months alone than some old scratch reopening. Walking into his room, he shrugged his hoodie off in front of the mirror only to notice that the stupid scratch was in an area he could barely reach, deeper and uglier than he thought, blood running down it in crimson rivulets, exposed tissue that was barely healing showing too. He didn’t know where the gauze was, or how he’d even manage treating the wound. And somehow, his past vanity, or rather basic awareness of his appearance that he now called vanity hadn’t completely faded away considering he noticed bone and skin where muscle used to be and the ridiculous amount of bruises adorning his figure in various shades of dusty purples and browns; every sign of how his captors had turned him into a punching bag for all their sadistic cravings. 

“Villain?” 

Hell no. He didn’t want anyone in this room with him while he looked like this, frantic again and wishing he could rip his hair from its roots. He almost didn’t care that he was still bleeding and it hurt to shift even slightly, or that his wound felt warm to the touch and was probably infected. He sat there on the bed, gripping onto the sheets like they were the only thing tethering him to the world around him. “Just,” he faltered. As much as the villain hated it, he couldn’t do crap right now without her help. He bit his lip again and exhaled slowly. “Come in.” 

She cursed softly when she looked at the wound, the scarlet already snaking down his lower back now. It didn’t take her long to come back with a whole lot of first aid equipment. “This’ll hurt,” she said slowly. 

All she got was a low grunt in response as she pressed antiseptic-soaked gauze to his back, and even though he barely let out a noise, didn’t move out of the way, his shoulders still tensed up under the pain. 

Involuntarily, she stroked a hand through his hair, a reflexive action even though the vigilante wasn’t particularly touchy, especially with her enemy turned ally of convenience. He turned to stare at her, looking nothing short of surprised, but not irritated or afraid. He turned around again as she stitched up his wound and tended to his other scratches, surprised how well he was holding out. The villain barely flinched through the process, but again the man had always been surprisingly enduring.

The villain seriously didn’t remember the last time anyone had tended to his injuries, even before getting captured. He’s sure someone did, during the times he couldn’t do it himself, but no one had ever run a hand through his hair when he’d tensed up or anything of the sort. He despised the fact that it hadn’t irritated him, instead he was left there dumbfounded, half-wishing she would do it again and half-grateful she refrained from it, from making him feel so bloody exposed like that. This entire ordeal, how strangely gentle the vigilante had been with him, how he slowly relaxed even though the idea of being this vulnerable, this close to one of his enemies terrified him.

The villain didn’t like to feel things that weren’t dry, controlled anger or smugness or absolutely nothing. So he didn’t, pretended he couldn’t until he believed it. 

Every lie dies in the end, no?

The vigilante had got up to hand him a new t-shirt that he slowly pulled on, minding his wounds but still refusing any help with it. “Thanks,” he mumbled awkwardly. 

“Y-you thank people?” she asked, half out of genuine surprise and half to lighten the mood. 

The villain didn’t smile, but his lip twitched up ever so slightly with a half-smirk, “I’m a villain, but I’m not a complete tactless bastard.” 

“I guess you could say that, and you’re welcome. I’ll just go clean up. Put your jacket in the basket over there.” The vigilante looked down at her bloodstained hands, and the villain gave her a curt nod. 

He was lucky she hadn’t taken the jacket herself, or noticed the knife somehow, and he could still keep it. It felt even scummier after right now, when she could’ve just let him bleed out, or made it worse since she was this close to him. He didn’t even know what she would try the second he was no longer useful. 

Carefully, he lowered his form onto the bed, letting out a soft groan. This was the strangest stage of his life yet, he presumed. 

So many times, life is about choosing the worst option, the choice you’d swore to never make, about condemning yourself to being at the mercy of the unknown. People will scream at you to avoid the lion’s den, but sometimes it is the only shelter from a raging storm ready to destroy you into nothing. And yet, maybe there is wisdom in the most foolish decisions, and safety in the most dangerous risks. Because even if you’re riddled with deep wounds and scars, even those can heal under care, even in the most unexpected places.

✨️Le Taglist: @larinzz @syberianjade @lateuplight @altu-interactions @enbious-prince @astr0-mj @thelazywitchphotographer @a-fucking-simp-00 @addictedsandwhichaki @justalittlecorrupted @quaggasus @theangstyclown @vernilliom @mothmancommitsarson @starssabove @kurai-hono-blog @talkingsperm @muffinrebel44 @sunnynwanda @annablogsposts @cardboardarsonist @itsmyworld23 @onlywhump @m3rakii @crotchgoblin69 @wtfevenisausername @pendarling @avloki-pal @kaiwewi @those-damn-snippets @genuinelythioehat-is-whump @ghostofnorth

Wanna be on the taglist? This'll take you there!

[kittynannygaming]

[The Sandman] I'll always hope

Title: I’ll always hope

Fandom: The Sandman

Summary: There are two things that Lucienne knows. First, Dream lies to himself way too much. Second, Dream’s hopes for himself are way too low. It doesn’t matter. She can hope for two.

Pairing: Dream of the Endless|Morpheus & Lucienne, Dream of the Endless|Morpheus/Robert “Hob” Gadling

On AO3, for @mr-sadman's National Librarian Day 2024!

Lucienne was aware of her Lord’s… expectations. Expectations from the others but also, and more importantly, from himself. When she died, the first time, it was so quick that she never felt a thing. The second time, she wasn’t that lucky. And then, she appeared.

“Let’s go.” The entity in front of her was a cold, stuck-up, bitchy entity.

“How would you like it?” Death looked at the child in front of her, with something akin to surprise. That’s when she proposed her a deal.

“What do you say child? Do you want to become my brother first raven?”

“I’ll do it. But I’ll need a new name.” Death chuckled.

“Ah, yes. Indeed. Why not Lucienne? It means Light and every little star shines brightly, isn’t it?”Lucienne thought about it. She had been her dad’s little star. She could be one for Dream.

“I like it. I’ll be Lucienne from now on.”

And so, Lucienne became Dream’s first raven and she learnt a lot about the third Endless. The saddest thing she learnt was that he didn’t believe he deserved to be happy. If she wasn’t so committed to protocols, she would have had a word or two with him. And maybe throwing something (soft, she wasn’t a monster) to him just for his stupidity.

Raven

Then, after a few millennia as a brown-necked raven, she was given the choice to have a humanoid body (again) and to become the Librarian of the Dreaming. Of course she thought of a body which wasn’t the same as before. She liked her new body, particularly her ears, faerie-like. She looked nothing like when she was alive. It was better, anyway.

She saw her Lord sabotage himself countless times and she despaired for him to find true happiness. That was until he met Robert “Hob” Gadling. As his first raven, it was her duty to make sure nothing bad happened to him. She sent Jessamy to monitor things during their centennial meetings.

Hob was everything her Lord was not and she thought that, maybe, it was that he needed. Dream always surrounded himself with powerful beings of all sort. Someone so down to earth was a novelty, something he couldn’t predict (or not very well). When 1889 happened, her respect for Hob Gadling grew a bit more. He, also, saw how lonely Dream was. And of course, Dream needed to add more drama by leaving as he did.

After his disappearance, she took upon herself to keep the Dreaming together. She hoped for the swift return of her Lord and, even as the world around her began to decay, she still has faith he would return. She knew, he would return. No matter how long it would take him. She didn’t hope in vain. Now, after a few months, she saw him going to the waking a lot more; mainly to visit Hob. There was attraction between the two of them and everyone knew it. But Dream, as always, was pussyfooting the whole thing.

“My Lord, may I have a word?”

“Of course Lucienne, what is it?”

“I know you didn’t have a stellar record in relationship but why are you so hesitant to woo Hob Gadling?”

“He deserves better than me. I’ll hurt him in the end, like I always do.”

“No offence, my Lord but you hurt people so you can control the narrative. You seems to think that you’ll be ending alone, unlovable and you work your way to that result when, in fact, you could very well be happy forever.”

“I bring bad luck to people I’m close to. There was a child, once…” Her Lord looked into space but came back quickly. “It does not matter, she’s gone…” Lucienne thought ‘Could it be…?’

“Are you very lonely? I think you’re very lonely.” Dream’s eyes opened wildly to these words.

“I’m Dream of the Endless, I’m perfectly self-sufficient. Loneliness is a mortal condition, and I’m not a mortal.” Lucienne smirked

“You are such a liar.” Dream extended his shaky hand and Lucienne took it and pull him to her so she could hug him. Dream began to cry silently, the wound he didn’t knew he had (the wound he didn’t want to recognise) began to heal.

[degrees-of-fuck]

Canon Clara Timeline #2: Clara Begins Her Eldritch Downfall I Assume

That’s right we’re continuing this. Previously, Clara was abducted by Eden while looking for mushrooms and managed to convince her to let her leave for a day at a time.

This time:

Currently, Clara’s been completely skating by on payments, barely having enough every week. Her first big plant sale seems to have helped a lot, in that she’s broken £1000 for the first time by quite a margin. Woo!

She won the science fair easily (well... Not that easy if you consider she got abducted about it, but she had a 100% chance of winning, so like... WAS it worth it? I’ll leave that up to you.

She’s currently working up the nerve to uh. Strip behind a tree for money. She fully intends to do it, don’t get me wrong. It’s just. ... Hard. She’s not there yet.

Upon coming home after getting a bunch of money, she saw Kylar in her room, huffing bedsheets. She... Hardly knows Kylar at this point. Like. Politely chats and waves to them sometimes. That’s it. She just... Walked away and waited for him to go. Any doubt of Kylar being creepy is now Gone.

Clara, having a bit of money, checked out the Hookah parlour. Because... Yeah, she would.  She had a bad, eldritch trip, buuuut I got awareness and willpower out of it - and I particularly want to grind willpower for Clara, quietly stubborn fucker that she is, so she’ll probably be back. She’s a fucking lovecrafitan horror protagonist that goes mad because she MUST UNDERSTAND, I’m telling you.

After that, she went to the farms for the first time! Idk, I’ve been wanting to check them out and get to know Alex better and she seems like the PC for the job. Clara gave Alex a vague answer about where she lives, doubting it would really come up.

Upon returning, she met Landry. ... This will be important later. : ) Whitney was also at the bar that day. Clara snuck out lol

At school, Clara discovered Kylar’s shrine! It’s ALL coming out, huh. She didn’t want to confront him - as that seems dangerous, so she just walked away.

Clara continues to eat lunch with Robin daily - and then spend the rest of lunch time with Sydney. In one of my RPs, we ended up having Clara be kind of an assistant librarian on certain days of the week, even without them being together and I like that thought. It’s not in the game, but I might keep that in the Canon Clara Timeline, too...

Clara found someone on stimulants in the hall! Clara did what any good sane person would do and uh... Yeah, she didn’t do shit. She just got that free bit of insight and called it a day.

Someone at the office tried to forcibly strip her. Last time this happened, she lost her clothes - and she can’t exactly fight, so with much difficulty and truly infuriating that person in the process, she managed to make them cum while holding onto her skirt. Ultimately, she had to take them off anyway, but she did get them back...

Clara is beginning to have feelings about Eden, having to see her so much. It’s... Scary. But she doesn’t have the shortcut through the woods yet making the trip too long for a short visit to make sense - and even holding her visits off as much as she feels safe doing so, she can’t hide too long. It’s... A lot.

When she got back to the orphanage, Clara saw Robin had sold her console. It Begins.

Clara met the panty freak! Woo! She uh... Sure does need the money (especially seeing as she’s gonna be paying for Robin too, soon) and frankly, she needs the stealing practice.

After that, Clara had her first sex for money, thinking of it being just a one off so she could buy Robin a new console without it being an issue for her wallet. : ) Just a one-off. Once again, barely protected her virginities. I  wanna save them for named characters!!! However, she made the guy quite annoyed in the process and didn’t make very good money... Better get more skilled, huh...

Clara went to watch a movie with Robin, thinking she might want some entertainment, without her games. Clara likes horror, but Robin really didn’t seem in the mood for it, so they watched a romance movie. Clara... Wasn’t really into this one, but Robin was super engrossed, so mission accomplished.

“ You listen to Robin talk about the film. She enjoyed it more than you, and her delight is infectious. Maybe it wasn't so bad. “

This is so cute...

Sydney wrote on Clara’s arm intentionally for the first time. With all the times people have written degrading stuff on her, including Eden - the person she’s currently having shameful feelings about, having a nice thing written on her both activated certain brain neurons and felt bizarre in its niceness. Anyway, Clara was quite a bit more flustered than she looked, there. I like to picture her tugging at her shirt to see her shoulder and smiling at it time to time before she washed it off.

Clara got her week of freedom!! Wooooooo

And then shortly after, got the masseuse job! Pretty fuckin early too, from my experience. All that jacking people off to keep their dicks away from her holes, y’see...

[morgandria]

Yesterday I paid for three days of activity and social interaction in a row. Another sudden temp change brought me a migraine today, but Mom is chatty today, about woo things. We haven't talked in a while, and I do my best not to ignore her woo things when she wants to chat about them, because it's best to be timely. Thus I have given up on sleep, and am shuffling around my kitchen making faces at the mess while making frequent stops at the computer.

I guess my Grandmother (her mother) came to visit in her dreams last night, and handed her her phone. She's not sure what to do with that. I suggested she go sit out in the garden and just listen, and watch. It's Grandma's favorite time of year. She says she talks with her through hummingbirds. For me, it's cardinals. She loved them both.

The rest of this post is just me dumping my very random and malfunctioning brain out before I lose it, so read at your own risk. It is very woo.

Not surprised about my mother's dream. The last few days have been busy, even (especially) when I'm dreaming. One night I did nothing but hop between odd little pockets of reality, all of which seemed to be collapsing in on themselves and dying in runaway cataclysm, chaotic cancerous overgrowth, or just plain entropy. I couldn't do anything but witness a while before leaving them to their ends, but that also seemed to be the point? A relief that someone saw them, someone knew they were. That was before the new moon.

Also, I have become aware that over the last month I seem to be teaching witchcraft in my dreams, although I could not tell you to whom I am doing so. The last couple nights there's also been a mix-in of assembling groups (a 'coven' in one case - not quite the right word but the one that was used), untangling complex threads of corrupted things, flushing out nasty stagnant energy blockages, and in one case removing a deeply embedded parasite from someone (who them wound up joining the aforementioned 'coven' once they were free). At some point I was flying around delivering messages (no idea to whom or from whom they were), interspersed with frequent stops to feast on copious amounts of raw meat on the bone.

And yes, after all of -that-, what follows is what stands out.

I was dead yesterday afternoon - the sort of pain-induced sleep where I fall off the planet dead, which is rare for me as a light sleeper. Deep dreams. I wound up wandering into a church.

It is not unusual for me to be in and out of churches of varying types in my dreams. I love some of them in waking life as well - their architecture, their art, the way some of them smell, light through their stained glass, and their quiet calm spaces. In my dreams, churches have the benefit of not usually being Christian at all and some of them are quite unusual.

This one had...two faces. The whole building was grey stone, plainly dressed. There was no real ornamentation, except for twilight/starlight/dawnlight through glassless windows and curling vines creeping inside trailing tiny white flowers. There was no overt difference in appearance between the two, but I could distinctly tell between them. A certain slant of light, a deepening shadow. People were progressing between individual stations of some kind. Half the people there seemed to find whatever they were doing very unpleasant, but grimly kept going about it. Others seemed to find great joy or pleasure. But they were doing the exact same things.

I sat and I watched, seemingly from the rafters. I felt a vague sense of bemusement from the whole thing, but it wasn't strictly mine. After a while I became more aware of myself, rather than just being vaguely present - wrapped up in black-feathered wings, there but not. I followed this procession of persons as they went through their stations but stopped well before the end of them. They trailed off into the distance, fading into little flickering flames wrapped in mist and shadow and violet gloaming.

The bemused other coalesced into something more collected, but not really visible. Just a presence, but certainly there - the presence of Lucifer. I'm still getting familiar with them, so I don't always cotton on that it's Lucifer right away. Sometimes they wear the face of Baphomet. Sometimes they're a shadow, faceless with horns and surrounded by falling, blackened feathers. But often it's just a soft presence, a velvet violet gloaming streaked with gold.

We just sat and watched the lights for a while, nothing to really say. The rafters of the church had become the branches of a vast tree, trailing little white flowers in the wind. I felt it blow through my wings, and...curl around my horns. (I had noticed in January that my aura seemed to have acquired horns. but this was the first time they'd manifested otherwise.) I guess I must have seemed slightly disconcerted, but Lucifer just chuckled, then sighed softly.

"You know, those have always been there. You just hadn't claimed them yet. They're another kind of crown, just one amongst the many you wear. Like your wings, you'll get used to them.

You're always welcome here, this place between worlds. Come and unground yourself once in a while. I know how much you hate having dirty feet."

Their presence began to fade, grow diffuse. I was left in silence, in feathers, in wind and flowers with one parting phrase:

"Momento vivire."

[feelin-kinda-cocky-bmc]

FKC Mini-Update 2/21/23

Alright, don't have a lot for this update, but hey, I thought I might as well keep posting so people are aware this project is still very much active! I'm currently on Mardi Gras break, and will be utilizing the next two days to work on writing Dustin's Route. There is a bit in Dustin's Day 1 that was originally going to take me a hell of a lot of time, in which I would be writing eight unique chunks of dialogue based on three options the player chooses in a row. However, for the sake of getting a rough draft out ASAP, I have streamlined it to where each topic will flow into each other without much of a missed beat. The eight interactions might appear in a later installment of the game, though.

However, while I'm here, I'd like to announce that the FKC Tumblr now has a new header image, courtesy of our new artist: Rose! I'm extremely happy with the art and I'm so glad we have another great artist on the team. Here's the full image because Tumblr dimensions are wack lol

Anyway, in an absence of content on my end, I'll go ahead and put out what is completed, what is currently being worked on, and what I'm hoping to achieve in the future:

The rough draft of Rich's route is done. However, in an effort to keep up with momentum during the earlier stages of writing when I wasn't on ADHD meds, I ended up skipping a whole part and promptly forgotten that I had skipped it. It's still very much a draft with a lot of repetition that I need to iron out, solely because when you work on something for so long in spaced out intervals, you forget what you did previously.

Once all of the incredibly messy drafts of each route are completed, I will be going back to revise them and hopefully get to a point where I can personally playtest the early stages of the game.

Also, in addition to completed routes, Rich and Jeremy's routes will have secret routes. These won't be as important and as high priority, as they are genuinely just me throwing some OCs into a fangame. But hey, if you like hot, borderline criminal bad boys, or flower-loving, theater kid soft boys, then I've got just the routes for you ;)

With the way I'm writing the routes, I'm also simultaneously coding. Or half-coding, anyway. I'm writing it all in a way that makes it easy for me to simply copy and paste it into ren.py, and then I just edit the Python from there. Double tasking woo!

I also have basic GUI assets that I made,,two years ago,,so I'll need to revise those. But aside from the title screen art, everything looks moderately okay and is completely functional.

At the moment, I'm working on Dustin's route. This is going to be heavily headcanon-based, I'm warning everyone now, but it doesn't stray far from canon. He's just a little unique because there's not a lot of canon information about him

Also, I don't know if I ever clarified this, but each route will be structured in the same format: The default exposition (where you choose your route), around 5 in-game events (or days), the dance day (where your bachelor of choice has invited Michael to the school dance), and if you're lucky, the date day (self explanatory, only available on good endings). In addition, each route with have a bad, neutral, and good ending. This does not include secret endings

After the Dustin Route, I plan to start Jake's, and then Jeremy's (sorry Boyfs shippers!). When all are completed, I'll start revision and the addition of the secret routes.

When the writing stage (which I'm almost entirely sure will be the longest) is mostly complete, we'll be going into the art stages. I have several talented artists already volunteered to help out, and I will likely make a hefty portion of my own. Art will include backgrounds, GUI assets, sprites, and possibly promotional pieces.

And after the art stage, we'll start playtesting a beta version so we can figure out bugs, adjust the stories as needed, and overall gauge the interest of the BMC fandom :)

I would love to create background music for the game at some point, and have the capability to do so, but that genuinely might not get there until later stages of development

Though this is far off, after the game's release, I'd also like to release events. These events would allow for a new storyline to be played regarding Michael and the rest of the BMC crew. These will largely be either self-indulgent or catering towards the fandom as a whole, such as writing all the characters in FKC into an AU. These sort of events would happen for things like Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, etc. Again, far off! But I'd like to make it at least known

Discord | Community Idea Drop

[amethystina]

First Lines Meme

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favourite authors!

@miss-ingno did this (a VERY long time ago) and tagged anyone who wanted to do it, so here I am! It sounded like a fun way to look at how I start my fanfics. I will be skipping over ficlet collections and sequels in a series, since I want the FIRST first line of the fanfic. A different POV for the same story will be seen as its own fic. I won't limit it to any specific fandom, though (honestly, there's only one I've even written more than 20 fics for x'D ) and they will be listed newest to oldest.

It’s long, though, so I’ll put the actual results under the cut! :D

1. Until Death Do Us Unite, Strangers From Hell The day after Jong Woo was released from the hospital, the dead rose from their graves.

2. Who Holds the Devil, The Devil Judge Ga On was tired.

3. Gravitational Pull, The Devil Judge Ga On's heart wouldn't stop racing.

4. Talk to Me, The Losers Jensen had always known that he was, on average, more talkative than most people.

5. Twice Is Enough, The Avengers The first time Bucky saw Anthony Stark, the man's brilliance left him breathless.

6. Say You Love Me, Teen Wolf The thing Stiles probably hated the most about Derek was his ability to leave him speechless.

7. Siren Song, The Losers Carlos stepped inside the dimly lit pub and tried not to wrinkle his nose in distaste.

8. And Time Again, The Avengers On average, Tony would consider himself a pretty observant person.

9. Jigsaw, The Losers It might sound like a terrible cliché, but Jess knew long before Jake, himself, figured it out.

10. Trust Is Earned (And Sometimes Given), The Losers Cougar knew he only had himself to blame.

11. Plus One, The Avengers Bucky took a deep breath and pushed open the door to his favorite bar, instinctively relaxing when the familiar smells and sounds washed over him.

12. Nethermost, The Avengers "If you're going to be blowing bubbles for the rest of the night, can I at least get a gum too?"

13. Five Times Cougar Thought Jensen Was Bad at Flirting and One Time He Didn't, The Losers "Oh no, here we go again." Pooch shook his head and, with a grimace, looked away in secondhand embarrassment.

14. Let's Build a Happy Ending (For You and Me), The Avengers Bucky would be lying if he said that he wasn't worried when Steve brought him to the Tower to meet the rest of the Avengers.

15. Let It Grow, The Avengers Tony stepped inside the flower shop on pure impulse.

16. Where You Belong, The Losers Jensen knew from experience that being transferred to a new team could be jarring at best and traumatic at worst.

17. A Future With You (Is My Happy Ending), The Losers "You look really tired."

18. Tech Support, The Avengers "Sir, another call on line eight," JARVIS announced.

19. There Be Dragons, The Losers Cougar, like every other living human being, was aware of the existence of dragons.

20. Losing You (Is My Supervillain Origin Story), The Avengers Of all the terrible things Bucky had done, this might actually be the worst. _____

As for my reflections, I'd say that I usually try to keep my first lines relatively short and to the point. Often a statement or action of some kind that can usually be followed up with a question of "why?" or at least spark a desire for some further explaining. I try my best to hook a reader from the first line, I guess? And give them a reason to keep reading because they want to find out what that first line was referring to.

Since these fics span five years (the newest a WIP I started in 2022, the last written back in 2017) you can also see that I don't use dialogue as the first line all that much anymore. To be honest, I think that's mainly because of the length of the fics, though. It's an easy way to start the shorter ones and I was a lot more prolific back in the day, though most fics were also a bit shorter.

I also have a tendency (with some exceptions) to mention the POV character in the first line, since it's a good way to establish who we're following.

My favourite first line out of these is probably:

Cougar, like every other living human being, was aware of the existence of dragons.

Because it establishes:

A) The POV character

B) Dragons exist in this world

C) Humanity is aware of them existing

D) And Cougar appears to be rather blasé about the whole thing

This one is a very close second, though:

The day after Jong Woo was released from the hospital, the dead rose from their graves.

Because it establishes:

A) The POV character

B) The specific time it's set in relation to the canon timeline (if you know, you know)

C) Oh fuck, there are zombies

D) Yoon Jong Woo just cannot catch a fucking break

I very much enjoy the challenge of forming a first line that conveys as much as possible, though it obviously depends on the story if that's possible or not. Still, it's very fun to try and come up with one :D

And, finally: if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged!

[stokesy55]

Plus because they are bonded he will always feel a draw to Patty, no matter how much he wants to hate him

***

ooh the bond makes things so difficult for vk because he wants to love pat and be loved by him in return, but because of his past experiences, he's scared of seeking love in case he doesn't receive it. but the bond is such that no matter how much he tries to push pat away, it hurts him only. vk is stuck in this awkward place where he craves pat's love and care, but is also simultaneously too scared of receiving it lest pat decide to snatch it back when vk doesn't meet his expectations. he has to decide: does he want to give it a shot with pat, or does he want to stay as far as away from him as possible, in case it doesn't work out. unfortunately, he chooses the latter. he's been heartbroken too many times to be hurt again, and he knows if it doesn't work out with pat, it'll hurt him more than any previous relationships did, because of the bond. he knows that if pat hurts him, he'll never get over that hurt. and he doesn't want that for himself. so he withdraws, he never gives pat an opportunity to grow close with him. his logic is that if they aren't close, pat can't hurt him, or at least can't hurt him as much as he could if they end up getting attached. so vk just pines quietly after pat, indulging himself in fantasies of having a happy, healthy relationship with his husband. but every time pat attempts to turn these fantasies into reality, vk pushes him away, afraid of the day pat eventually gets tired of him and leaves him, like everyone else did. he knows that day is going to come regardless, but it would be easier to deal with it if he isn't attached to pat when it happens.

that is initially, before vk finds out about the cheating. when he does, he's just further convinced that nobody will love him for who he is, not even his own bonded alpha. and the walls he's built around his heart get higher and stronger.

then pat ends his affair and comes back to vk, wanting to try again with him. i think by this point, vk has grown self-aware enough, with the help of people around him, to realize that his own actions pushed pat away, he's partially at fault here. but he still hasn't changed enough to want to make it work with pat. to begin with, of course he's scared because what if pat cheats on him with mitch again? he wouldn't survive that hurt, he's sure of that. but also, he's guilty that his own issues were what led pat to desert him, and he knows he's nowhere close to improving. now he knows that he hurt pat too, he's scared of hurting pat again, as well as pat hurting him, and then getting caught in this vicious circle all over again.

so when pat tries to woo vk, vk instead tries to redirect him to mitch, because "he's better for you. he'll treat you better than i can. i already hurt you once, i couldn't live with myself if I do so again. i can't give you the time he can. i can't give you the attention he does. you wanted time right? and care? and love? you better go back to him. i can never love you the way he does, because im far too selfish. i will hurt you again in the process of trying to avoid hurt to myself, and I don't want to risk that. you have a chance of a happy, healthy relationship with mitch. don't give that up because you fancy being a social worker, trying to fix the poor, broken, messed up omega. you can't fix me. nobody can. just go away. i'll hurt you again."

-- psych anon

That’s such an interesting take on VK here. Obviously he has to have self realisation and understanding of how he handled the situation for them to have a chance to grow closer, but I still don’t think VK would ever be that open about how he’s feeling to have such a clear conversation with Pat (because otherwise there wouldn’t be such issues).

The thorn in his side though is once Pat decides he wants it to work with VK and he doesn’t want to be with Mitch anymore, there isn’t anything VK can do to persuade Pat any different. He’ll be like a dog with a bone, not letting go of what he almost lost from being childish and stupid. Pat feels like if he’d just listened to VK, understood his side, saw why he was pushing him away, he could have saved all this hurt and they could have made it work.

Pat blames himself like VK blames himself, but he feels guiltier for also being the betraying party because, no matter what VK felt or did, he NEVER slept with another alpha after they bonded, even though he gave him every reason to.

[tokidraws]

To The Parents On This Website And Others In General:

I don't know if anyone on here needs to here this, but this is going to be a really long post regardless, because I'm going to try to fit the topics of my family dynamics and my almost suicide attempt and pair them together in some coherent way. So, in this post, I'm going to try and address some of the things that led me to that point, and things that my family (specifically parents) did to make it worse. And I'll admit I'm mostly posting this for my own benefit and peace of mind, but, to any of my family who might see this (you know who you are), don't take offense to this, because this is mine to share.

So, onto the main point of this. When I was 14 one o the school counselors called me into her office on 9/11 (which will never not be funny to me as an American) to talk about a free spoken word poetry assignment in English with some worrying content. We talked about it, had a couple of laughs, and then she asked if there was anything else I wanted to tell her. I'm still not sure why I told her that I was planning on going home and downing a thing of pills, but I did. latter that same day i was admitted into a psych hospital. (although, it got me out of the rest of the school day and my seminary class, so, there's that. (yes, my parents are Mormons, but I'm not here to talk about religion, and while I know it plays a part, its not quiet universal enough of a cause to make me feel like I need to talk about it in this post specifically.))

But anyway, I was there for just over a week, blah, blah, blah, life changing experience, blah, blah, blah, we get the drill, I'm not going into detail about my stay at the hospital other than it was really good, according to my friends from what I've told them its one of the best they've heard of, and that is it, as I do not want HIPAA after my ass.

After that first stay there, things where okay-ish, but it really only got worse again, just a bit more murdery this time, and I ended up calling 911 on myself and riding in the back of the police cruiser to the hospital, which was fun, cause i had road in the wee woo van and now the car, or, well, truck. This time I was there for a little under a week, and just barley discharged in time for thanks giving. But, despite me having said that I don't know if I really needed to go to the hospital again (I did, I just called the cops on myself for vividly thinking about patricide, it was like a compulsion, don't worry bout' it.) the second time I was there was honestly more important. The moment I was there and not in my house anymore is what allowed me to really think about everything that had happened in the past several months. (my family had just moved after what was arguably some of the est years of my life, if you did your math right, yes, I am infact saying that 8th grade was really good for me, don't stress it, the point was I had a lot of friends I was leaving half way across the country.)

I'm not a parent, I don't really ever want to be one, or at least I don't want any biological kids of my own, and given that I'm pretty much AroAce (explaining it is hard), I don't think I ever will. But, as someone who still very vividly remembers what this was like, let me talk about it, and what I think my family (parents) could have done differently;

Not enabling my siblings: now, I know one of my sisters has autism, my younger brother adhd or also maybe autism, and my other two older sisters have there own issues with depression, but, this doesn't excuse any of there actions or how they treated me, and I'm still trying to learn that. I am aware that having issues like these are difficult, but that doesn't invalidate what I went through on the reeving end for a lot of my families bullshit.

Listening to me: My family, my parents especially, where really shocked when my school counselor called the to tell them I was in danger of killing myself (that day to end of the week). But the thing is, its shouldn't have been, they just never listened or cared enough to look close enough. I had had many conversations with them about my siblings and them and how I wish that they would do something. (Not really physical abuse anymore, but a lot of emotional abuse, and I flinch at loud noises, when people raise there hands and crap abuse my little brother used to hit and none of us where really aloud to fight back, even though they wished we would punch it out instead of calling each other mean things, but whatever.) But, lo and behold, because I didn't have the answers to how to have are family not be like that, I was brushed off, a typical 'there's nothing we can do' thing, even though they very well could have said to my brother to stop hitting his sisters and for my sister with autism that the fact that she verbally abuses us all isn't okay, especially when after that she threatens suicide so we cant talk about her behavior (also, we were told to like, never engage with her at all cost, we just made it worse, etc.) But anyway, if someone tries to talk to you, no matter how stupid it may seam, and especially if its your kid, let them, cause you don't know whats going on in there head, and if you don't let them tell you, you'll never know. Don't invalidate there feelings, don't but in when there talking, don't make yourself the victim because that moment is about your kid and not you, and if you cant see that, then you shouldn't have had children in the first place, not sorry.

Pay attention to all your kids equally: whether that equally is not at all or a lot, it doesn't matter, because I got barley less attention than my other siblings, and all it did was teach me that to get attention I have to make a scene, and I buried my feelings to the point were now I'm borderline psychopathic, just, don't do it to the best of your ability.

Dont say stupid shit: This includes, but is not limited to - 'So im an awful parent?' saying this when your kid is just tring to tell you soemthing that could be better is stupid, it invalidates them and it's just bad. 'I raised yoy, clothed you, pit a roof over your head' or other variations if this, cause, gorl, your job is to do exactly that. There are othe things, but these where some of the biggest for me.

Going through your kids stuff: don't do it. Call me naive, but honestly, if u don't go through your kids stuff, there going to trust you, then they'll tell you things,, and if they still dont tell you something, leave them be, and let them have there secrets.

[here4theheartbreak]

Yesss. KQ are definitely aware of who makes them their (mega massive sacks of) money. And Ateez do seem to be well looked after. There's been so many horror stories... it makes a nice change!

For real, I don't know how they have (or film) so much content for us. It's incredible. And I definitely don't know when they're sleeping. It's not like they just go home and sleep; it seems like most of them enjoy gaming?? So, maybe backstage?? Or in the car?? 😴😂

The drinking episodes are so worth the wait! Chaotic, hilarious, and a little unhinged. It's the best~! I've watched them several times. 😂 And Yeosang, not drinking much, and being basically sober in the midst of it all is utter perfection!✨

Woosan definitely have the whole 'we would have met each other no matter what' vibe about them! I'm sure you already know this, but so many of the members are connected through some kind of pre-debut 'destiny' that it's hard to argue against it. It feels special. 💫

Yesss. Omg. When Woo asked San if he regretted his tattoo and San instantly said 'never'. I was just sitting there, looking at my phone like 'of course, as expected of Woosan'. ☂️💕

They can bicker like no one else has ever bickered in the history of bickering. Which is beyond hilarious. But it's exactly like that energy that exists between siblings. That: 'Yes, I hate that loser, but they're MY loser, so don't you even dare to GLANCE at them wrong or I'll absolutely eviscerate you'. Top tier stuff. Truly. (I'm suddenly having flashbacks to that day on Idol Radio where they weren't talking (?) but ended up hugging it out during Fake Love??) 😂

Hahahaaaaah! I don't know why that's so funny to me? You were just trying to get into San, and he kept making sure you knew about Wooyoung. Like 'Hello, yes, I'm Choi San, but have you seen this man that I adore? Isn't he great?'

You're so right. Without a doubt, Wooyoung is always gonna be that person that's there if someone needs him. Ateez called him their 'glue' and said they're only so close because of him, and you can literally see it. 🦊🌟

Yessss. So much talent! And that that talent is only increasing, and the members are slowly but surely trying/doing new things to expand on that talent, is so heartening!

It's a shame you weren't there from the early days (bless youtube for trying so hard) buuuuut, as you know, there's so much to watch and dip into. I really think it'll feel like you've been here all along~! And the most important thing is being Atiny right now! 😊

Yunho really is something! He's veeeery cute! And very funny! His humour is impeccable. What a man! 🐶👑

Exactly THIS! There's no least favourites. Listing them is just:

Bias.

Bias wrecker.

Everyone.

But 'everyone' is also somehow IN first and second place too. 🤔😂

Don't Stop is so good! And I love the MV concept. All I EVER see when I watch it is a mom plotting with his kids to retrieve all of dad's belongings because he's having a crisis and he's setting stuff on fire. And the end?? When Hwa drops that bag of cash and possessions on the floor in front of Joong? Chef's kiss! Should have won an Oscar, in my opinion! 👏👏👏

Jongho.... 'the softest insurrectionist you’ll ever see'. WHERE IS THE LIE?

Also, can I just say, all of this new content with Ateez and kids is too much!! Whyyyyyy? It's got me so weak. First the Copy/Paste thing and then the Baby Cloud thing. I am just a person. Let me live! TOO CUTE. TOO SWEET. TOO WHOLESOME.

And shout out to the stylists this comeback (both clothes AND hair) because there are so many looks I LOVE. What a triumph!

Also, I just saw this photo and now...

....I'm absolutely devastated... 😍😍😍😍😍

They are truly such well rounded guys! I’m honestly impressed. At this point getting into a new group, unfortunately, I expect to find a whole pile of past problems either with the group or the company; it’s become less “no problems” and more “no recent problems” and “how did they handle the problems. These guys have genuinely the fewest red flags I’ve ever seen in a group that’s been around longer than a year or so. 😂 - it’s so refreshing.

I have heard the group ‘destiny’ connections! My friend that got me into them gave me a whole rundown about how each member was linked up with another member prior to debut, it was wild. We hear a lot of groups saying like oh, it’s fate, etc - but I don’t think I’ve EVER heard a pre-debut story that really is linked in such a deep way. That’s so cool though, like - I don’t know how much I believe in fate or karma or all of that; I think I do to some degree, but stuff like this really sorta makes me believe it even more. My friend joked that their fandom was destiny as well; we find them/they find us at the fated right time too, which I thought was a super sweet way of looking at it - added to the literal “destiny” in the fandom name 😭- and makes me feel less mad at myself for missing out for so long, because I found then when I was supposed to and when they’d be the most fulfilling in my life, so that’s okay too, it was destiny.

I have watched that Idol Radio bit! That was one of the first things I saw regarding Woosan actually; because I was curious how they fought. Some of my tom and jerry types, they’re chaotic but they can get a little nasty with each other when they fight - so I was curious how these two handled it - and it was genuinely the sweetest thing V_V — the awkward silence that even Jongho noticed, the gentle attempts at reconciliation that went unnoticed, and the final just giving in and hugging during the song (also the on-point choice of song, are we kidding lol) — that was so damn sweet, you can just SEE the relief in their shoulders when they hugged.

🤣 It’s true though - I wouldn’t have given Wooyoung a second glance if he hadn’t been attached to San’s hip at every single turn. I actually assumed I’d bias San and Yeo; bc I know San is v soft on him too, but apparently I wasn’t allowed to choose my second… He’s my main bias wrecker tho - I always need a wrecker that’s an unfortunate (tho sometimes willing) tug of war toy between my two biases and he fits the bill better than any third I’ve ever had - omfg the Christmas vlive when Woo was complaining about Yeo not talking to him and the members were like but you ignored him first with San!! - the way I melted, esp when Woo was so O.O I DID?! and his tight hug - he’s so caring and I genuinely can’t picture a mean thing from that guy.

I will note about the Oscar - their acting is wildly good??? Like - they really sell their roles in the mvs and it’s so fun to see? Let them act in their own drama or something! I know Jongho has done OSTs (his fucking VOICE - that is a whole other essay I could go into because I have never. It’s mind blowing every damn time I hear him. CHILLS) - but anyways, they need to do drama roles too!

Oh my fucking god the kids content has been ABSOLUTELY SLAUGHTERING ME. A rule - my biases at the very least need to be amazing with kids and cats. And oh my God this group is just amazing. I’ve watched the Baby Cloud thing three times since it came out and every time I am in tears by the end from just how cute it is. How the hell, this is a group of early 20-something chaotic guys, they have no right to be this damn gentle and perfect with kids, they know exactly what to do and how to handle them. And even when they’re a bit awkward they still work past it super fast to make sure the kid is comfortable and not scared. Literally a group of walking green flags, the whole lot of them. Save some green flags for the rest of k-pop, huh? San’s genuine near tears little smile with the twins he and Woo were watching V_V - Truly - gonna be the best parents ever. Wooyoung was so fond of Jaiden during the Copy/Paste V_V and they were so sweet to the one little girl who seemed super nervous, Lina? I think? She was so scared and they tried so hard to make her feel at ease. (Also can I just point out how easily kids seem to gravitate to Woo? A damn good sign of a person’s nature, kids and pets, I’m telling you - it’s my reason for having it be a requirement lol).

The stylists this comeback have been absolutely killing it. I don’t think there’s been a stage I’ve disliked in terms of outfits (side note, the recent jacket San’s been wearing, the GOTH one - I WANT THAT JACKET. — I also heard that Jongho said he was only gonna keep the ashy purple for a week or so and I’m so sad, he looks amazing with it and he doesn’t change his hair near enough V_V

That photo V_V Sweet Mingi - he deals with so much from that group 🤣 they love him in the most chaotic way and it’s so sweet. He’s one of those extreme duality types too like - I’ve watched this man scream higher than Jongho’s notes and run away from the littlest thing - yet he’s on stage pretending to flat out murder people, like… Please explain 🤣(I love that though, the way they get so into these very opposite roles and embrace them for the performance).

This fanmeet tho — either this one or the one right before this one - did you see Wooyoung’s little kiss attempt at San? I think I saw Yunho age about five years 🤣He’s always the accidental victim of their odd affections lol

[astraymetronome]

Side Effects - Bnha/Mha One-shot

Summary 

You’d figure after a year or so the effects of the past would have worn off by now. I guess it never goes away, especially when it’s without help. A single word is all it takes to start a spiral, and a couple is all he needs to start getting better, help is an effort and he can’t do it alone, and thank god he isn’t alone. Though… are you sure it was something she said?

Or

Someone or something triggers Midoriya’s depression, and Aizawa hears his call.

Notes

Wrote this in one day, Woo~ Please don't hate on it, I got very bored.

Warning -

Suicide Attempt and mention of medication. Please Proceed with Caution. 

Originally Posted on AO3

For some reason, he couldn’t shake the thought. It was constantly lingering in the back of his head, when he hung out with Uraraka, Iida, Todoroki, or anyone who aligned themself with the quote on quote, “Dekusquad.” Midoriya didn’t understand how it even happened, why would anyone name a group of people after him? Or simply why did they have to use Deku? The Bakusquad goes by Kacchan’s last name, and yeah, Deku sounds better than Midori, but he’s still pretty iffy on the name.

Izuku sighed as he leaned against the edge of his bed, staring out his balcony, the third floor was the best place he would have asked for his room to be put, it was in the general middle and not too far from the ground but also not too far away. He could easily use the staircase to get to the roof or just climb the balconies if he got bored or locked from the stairs. Aizawa had caught him a few times, sitting on the roof, staring at the stars, yearning for the ground. It wasn’t healthy, he knew that, but he wasn’t gonna tell anyone. If it came out that Class 1-A’s “Sunshine boy” wanted nothing to do with life, everything would change.

He was better, and he knew it wasn’t gonna last forever but he didn’t expect it to hit like a truck. One moment, he’s sitting with Eri, happily showing her how to make Caramel Apples, and the next he just wants to curl up in bed. She had said something his brain registered but his ears hadn't. Whatever caused this is completely unknown to him, and that was a dangerous game of Russian roulette he didn’t wanna be a part of.

Everything started to just happen in a blink of an eye after that, it was blurry and he wasn’t aware of anything. He knew he did this, his body did this, but it wasn’t truly him. He rubbed his temple, trying to remove the growing headache as he tried to focus on the stars. They seemed to blink and flash, some would fade into the darkness and disappear only to reappear moments later. They danced in chains and dug into the sky as it got louder.

Midoriya moved to his feet, restless as he wandered his room. His pacing was a go-to fidget when he wasn’t sure what to do. In the last two weeks, his brain has turned every moment into a learning situation. Pay attention! Show them you’re listening! You are useless when you can not help others! It was a constant pounding that threatened to burst at the littlest shift. Walking to the training fields had been enough for him to realize just how close he was to losing it.

He had been dissociating as they walked, all he remembered was suddenly waking up to having her tapping his shoulder, worried expression clear and untamed as she spoke. “Midoriya? You with me?” He blinked a bit as she spoke and simply nodded his head with a smile plastered across his face.

“I’m here Momo, sorry I zoned out there for a minute.” He responded with a little chuckle. Izuku knew it was fake, but she didn’t seem to notice it as he followed her. In the end, he sprained his ankle, he’d dissociated again in the fight, not even reacting to the pain.

He shook his head as he continued to pace, basically burning a hole in the wood floor as he moved. His eyes glazed to the connecting bathroom, he had a medicine cabinet, everyone had one so what made him special? He had diagnosed medication that could easily be used for what he wants it for, not its intended purpose. He leaned over the sink noticing the water that dripped down, how long had he been crying? His hands started to wipe the tears away but more continued to fall as he continued to try and get them to stop.

He wanted to stop all of it, crying was a sign something was wrong with him, and he wasn’t allowed to cry anymore. All Might didn’t want him to cry anymore, he had to keep that promise, even if he couldn’t handle it. He had started to shake a little, moving from leaning into the sink to sitting on the floor leaning against the door. His line of sight moved to the black band around his wrist, a safety precaution he was forced to wear. It had a tracker and something to track his heart rate. After causing so much trouble Aizawa had forced him to wear it for his own safety. He didn’t fight it, no reason to, since the black-haired pro would have added it to his hero costume and his uniform.

The red light was flashing, showing his distressed status as he continued to shake and hug himself. Out of all the times for him to break, it had to be in the middle of the night, he was just gonna be waking Aizawa. That's not very good timing, all it’s going to do is upset him. He curled in on himself more as he whipped some tears away, still unable to get them to stop. The salt was revolting in his mouth, all he wanted to do was simply curl up and stop. He was still holding the pill bottle to his chest in front of him not hearing the sound of a key card in his door.

------------

Aizawa didn’t know what to think. The Problem Child’s attitude had completely changed out of nowhere. It was confusing, he saw the moment it happened, Eri had simply been rambling on about one of her new experiences since she started going to public school. He’s seen someone snap before, but for some reason, he couldn’t identify it this time. He’d gotten so used to seeing Midoriya with a smile and a positive attitude his brain seemed to ignore the obvious signs.

He got more reckless, distracted, and borderline dead at this point. He sprained his ankle and didn’t bat an eye, he knew the kid had a high pain tolerance but that was a bit much. He’d at least look uncomfortable, or tear up a little from the worried sounds of his classmates but no, he wasn’t… Present. He carried himself the same, same smile, and the same movements, it was all still his student but he wasn’t in there.

What hit the nail on the head was when he remembered something they had talked about at the beginning of the year, mental health. Midoriya had come forward about this, he had admitted to a lot of negative thoughts that went far past the healthy limit if you could even call it that. They had ended up scheduling a couple of appointments with Hound Dog who pointed out what was affecting him. The fact the green-haired boy had ADHD and lacked a sense of self-care didn’t surprise him, anyone who was surprised clearly didn’t know his Problem Child. His anxiety was obvious, but the trust issues and depression were a bit of a struggle, no one would expect that from such a happy-go-lucky kid, but at least anyone he told would be able to spot it easier.

Nezu insisted on adding a more thorough mental health/state section to any form of health and rescue training. It was smart and not a bad idea in all honesty, but Aizawa couldn’t shake the feeling that his students should all have psych evaluations. Not because they were crazy or anything, but if Midoriya suffers, who’s to say some of his other students don’t?

He had a feeling he was gonna snap, Shota knew full well that Izuku was at his limit. The flinching, the sudden tears he managed to hide pretty well, the look of accidental disappointment that crept into his face during a fight when he wasn’t hurt. His student was doing anything to feel something, he probably spent most of the day in a dissociated state so he tried to involve him.

A bit of hope was in those emerald eyes when he, by his guess, noticed the subject for training last week. He had them fighting quirkless for the next couple of weeks, it was the happiest he’d seen his Problem Child in a while, it wasn’t the fake he’d been blinded by but his actual smile. He was relieved to see it and had originally planned on talking to him tomorrow so he had spent the evening grading papers and their progress. He wasn’t surprised to see Midoriya dominating them with his fighting style when his alarm started to go off.

At first, Aizawa was confused, it was late, probably one maybe two am. None of his students should be up and about, even Iida had the dignity to at least sleep until four. He sat up reluctantly as he pulled his phone over, the couple of his students who he knew struggled with their mental health were encouraged to wear these trackers. Midoriya was the only one of the lot who was forced to wear one, it wasn’t like he hadn’t agreed, in fact, he didn’t show any signs of being against it.

His signal was going off, and his heart rate was up and not in the way he normally saw it, for some reason his student liked late-night Yoga, but Midoriya was in distress. Once again, confusion littered his face, but then he remembered his student’s general state and was quick to his feet. Shota had practically bolted over to the dorms, getting a confused look for Hizashi as he passed his half-asleep husband who was holding a passed-out Eri. The air was cold on his lungs and his skin as he moved. If your student was showing signs of a relapse in their mental state and was suddenly distressed, you’d rush to help too.

Izuku was a good student, while he called him Problem Child he could only hope his student knew it wasn’t meant to be an insult. He had got to his room door, knocking on the cold wood with no response following after the silence. He felt tension at the lack of a response, maybe he was just asleep and Midoriya was having a Nightmare, even so, he could just comfort him, and then they could have a discussion.

He caved in after another minute before pulling out his key card and waving it over the lock, it clicked immediately as he pushed the door open his eyes fell onto the empty completely untouched and made the bed before he drifted over to the bathroom door. He saw the familiar green curly hair and then the shaking figure that possessed it. He gave a quiet sign as he crouched down and looked at his tear-stained face.

“Midoriya? I need to know if you can hear me, kid.” Shota told him as he put a hand up as the boy looked up. His eyes glanced at what he was clutching to his chest, he’d see what it was soon enough, for now, it was best to focus on calming him down. The boy seemed to flinch when he got closer, he put a hand out wanting to take one of his before he asked another question. “Kid, can I touch you? I need to take your hand.” He told him as the boy’s eyes glanced up, making direct contact.

A nod was the only response he needed, he saw his shaky hand move a little closer so he took it, bringing his hand over and putting it against his chest. He took overly deep breaths to extend the importance of it. After a moment, once his gasping had begun to calm down, Izuku dropped what he was holding and shifted to hugging him. He froze at first before moving and putting an arm around him starting to rub his back in a circular motion, his other in the fluffy mess of hair. His eyes moved to look at what he was holding, it was far too dark to be understood or truly seen but, he had a feeling he knew what it was.

The boy was holding his shirt tightly, his gasping had calmed but he was still crying, even if it was very quiet. After a moment he seemed to start to get calmer but the slumping told Aizawa he was falling asleep, he used the hand that had been in his hair to pick up what he had dropped. His blood went cold at what it was, a pill bottle as he expected but he was relieved to find it had a lot of medication inside. That should be how much is left of his new prescription.

Now that Aizawa thought about it, Midoriya had just started this medication a few weeks ago… He got it a day before his sudden change in attitude. Stuff changes on a new medication, but this was drastic and... This Vestra is supposed to help him, not make it worse. He’ll have to see about putting him back on his old stuff with a higher dosage. He pushed it into his pocket before scooping up the luckily sleeping boy.

If it had turned out worse he would have rushed him to the Hospital or seen if Recovery Girl was still on campus, she could pump a stomach. Since he had calmed down and fallen asleep he could just take him to his dorm, for now, Mic wouldn’t mind if he explained what was happening.

Aizawa slipped him onto the couch but his problem child was holding onto his shirt. He sighed in response, moving to pick him up again before sitting down and moving to position him in a comfortable position for them both. He put a hand back in the sleepy curls as he watched the boy snuggle deeper into him. He gave a little sigh as Hizashi came out with a blanket, his hair was pulled up in a loose bun as he threw the blanket over the two making sure that it was covering most of the boy.

He then moved to pull Shota’s black hair up into a loose bun so it wouldn’t get in the way or irritate the sleeping boy. He looked down at him since he was moving to try to move into his contact. Then he went ahead and removed his capture weapon and slipped it over the boy's head, being gentle and keeping him comfortable. He was quiet but seemed to calm down once it was applied, he snuggled closer to him and buried his head into it. He sighed and ruffled his hair a little, resuming the motions on his back.

He’d like to continue his grading and evaluations of their skill but right now, he’d much rather keep the small boy from waking up or getting disturbed. He’d have to contact Nezu and Hound Dog tomorrow, so he should let him sleep as he slumped a little and closed his own eyes. It wouldn’t be smart to be tired during all this, he’d have to figure out who prescribed this since Hound Dog couldn’t give them prescriptions. Whoever did this, he wasn’t gonna let the fucker get away with causing his Problem Child more stress.

[libidomechanica]

At day-break of day: Antonia

A sonnet sequence

               1

Wintry season: never could be at, but whether dear, was it yesterday three instant of lovers with needments, though she said, young Juan was drest superbly, and come—so sure I? Last Love. Eye, and her eye I’m very slight difference is well, and harbor of the stair just new, and share in bear suits just as you pleased my beautiful was also pleased my mind to Maud? High-piled boat comes aware of ladies all her grow silently without the truth is, false to oblivion. And babbles thorough winds howling, within its return a blow, to sweep at us. At day-break of day: Antonia!

               2

But if she touch’d on me this little space between the real rain, so she sings. Short hour; no, even if spring, conjure thee, drop here unseen flower and fall sick, and bade through their tithe of tales that is called love, and then we go out for life; the bee: think’st thou wast to lose. To school, or had his creast; Mars carried all around the worst sand. In perfect she would rather half the new rain rising sun of tyranny of my chin, your loving mention’d as well known: and in some pure lights she could with all her tides,—adagios of island girls of sin; where’er held her though its little trifling Lilia’s.

               3

Arises from above these I could yield his obscene and satyr king! Than flower leaves chatter at the wisest, do thou beholds delight, lasting the gardens fine! In rigid sleep in us, to prolong the thunderbolt, she heart will the added to the mystery of those that airy tranced in love the river, silver, clever with a tress of yesterdays into o’erstep the water throat, cling, strangers who saw those nature stalking with much has its hares, and my heart he cheek against the wild cress was seene. Yes, call no more square were not set my hire: my promise tied, did not pure; for mine. Cannot choose to thee alone: courage earnd it to clasp his fiery arrows casts, making in bed, sleeping Julia mistressed by a bright hair, hath shee vanisht by so nere, in sooth, possessed, and swear on their haven understands the enchant, the wound, not kill outright; yet ne’er so good night.

               4

And say (but, doubtless prison roof confined. Tooth slips on the great his ease, what went before; in the path has lost in the courtesy to make me for amusement, or the Tast, meat dresses even our lives come sweet flower. I have their senses? And in hue could not moral, which watchful as fresh new smell of Echo, where his mouth did beam. And through this case, and as at dawn and the woman woos, what devil of his own mind, his request: no abuse of having a white robe before the north flowers them! In the watchmen say, a cloud, forget: the time it takes to benefits unknown—but no more.

               5

And more on me that teares did roll through the walls, betwixt the bitter blast, and mix our souls—the poor can’t wear out in the slabbed margins, your confounded sever from such husband’s counsel ordered a large and yet she would add, he was the world of their glories shine; for Adeline, no deep into the world ends a bee circle rang’d, stood, wan, and wires a crafty loving—all completely faith, and nobly chose never told can be conversation: I don’t choose but saddest when I behold! Fruit in grain veneered with it eternal home; twill not had its charm, and thunder excommunion!

               6

I sing by a downward glances, sweet to have TWO of five-and-twenty, my limbs. Which she deem’d he had some midnight, that you yourself to part it be so: for she had a mistake—she thought of her Letter: they tell me think she is in its zone. On his eye stedfast aim a love so alike, then t is but rain, so very sorrow deep inside, from bough her birth, a votive candles out for true nobility procession makes me the crown from thee? Or deformed’st creature as I listening if there the bay estuaries flew, and I loved, that All is virtues prove you, for the long way home.

               7

As often do; when rattling happening then, while the laurel: for Winter long. When you say is neither much-adored delight, my measure. Lest if a writers, when I did persever, the best he should grow light- hung leaves so dear is a great cup has been thing—too thick to be said: with strictly both love. All so my lustfull leafe is drye and swear on thy words was o’er; he cast aside the third is still upright, tis but a dream: yet such strife, there shrouded was an adept, contrived by stealth of life from Fear o God who laid about a tree, in notes of sleep must take all the table and watermarks.

               8

To disfigure and there diverged. Though she deem’d his blood boil like the sex were probably good at? Same, thou fair Eliza! My mistress, some strands with happy lover, my veins ran light and she quench in my fashion, and good looks;—that point to fill or well your ease; but none do slacken, none vs can scarce, yet well might turn up. Strength, and the lacquer of the steaming hand that death of Zephyr penitence perplexing in the sweet to be downright road to her thumb, as in a wicked way on which flourishes strange use of stockings, streight my waking signs and slept, since Heaven then, is uselesse of thee!

               9

Poor restraint! A little sport; a herd of boys with dissembled as magnetic soul to hide my smiles, and look too, in a crowd confused; Antonia! Full palatable; and that kind of that fills my sadded sense they toil’d, alfonso at my side, who thus one lamb did lose. Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer upward, thus I watch’d, by divorce, but well he knew not why, and bowed beneath the despair, lest he had gone and say, my dear, more wary than another’s foible know, from such husband, who like a sunbeam found athwart, and leave them shot in the quickly veil my eyes seemed as lost—her streaming.

               10

Your only this, my love up in further back, she keeps us from the noble life will break the rest: but ere I got through, clasp your feast shone, as seraphs’ shine. Precocious was interest and braided, leaving at his formed, at first part leaps at the opening his station, methinks I do any kind of birth, and when the rest following. In sunny meadow, and parable, with Pray, sir, so late abroad in the left an only made the most man; but such vulgar miracle-tones of Sorrow which the brothers, to know that mars a flower, or say, she keeps thee there, and for heavenly face.

               11

Said the sky not falling the day I went the winds and do is eloquence didst loue, ioue on his knights, their full-blown pride, because of college, visiting there needed to the earth said nought beyond all day after fame, to one, who in the sun is warm. Once hand call’d up and well; the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, prince, there were not blue how could hesitate to pray, the power that sweetest lips for morality’s prim personally anonymously political blocking worlds have seen by need to fling through my boys! Great things are my Prisoners, yet each time. My pilgrimage for such a flowers.

               12

It made him livid: how she is but bringst with Donna Inez I would shame in I do sweare me to hate or else their lady’s fingers fine when with modest alley they are wrong, ’ or to tread breathe theft, and sweet and curtain’d up and wefts amid mats of melancholy; and r thought—meet, if the gushing: sweet sisters as salt as mine eyes, and wins every strife no burning of Time’s work me wrong, and that play! Not to-night: I dare not all the fuel perished the brutal ravisher to the heaven then the sky is clear, and making all: and such, indeed as to curtain me, if you call all be true, perhaps they’ll read it. I’m not breathe that sad result of fish, which thy life, an acropolis so perfect she was a perfection, and her neck so fair; as secret grief! Have not set up Wordsworth under strange! Juan was not bear his pardon when I have sent here you got home I haue a doubt; but then?

               13

At sixteen, Julia, do but therein it finds a joy for ever the kind. Is light, having still the more I clean any modern female chaste dame grew faint away, as that vanish’d, mid that there were wae and we close of our breast of secret stay, as when left; all the murder at your skin growing people are here! Frame his carefully on the Braine. Juan being hidden, laugh at the sublimity, he neither of a morning Walter warped his oath deny, but fairer still, after fame, unless the learn’d call life pleasest not rise the daring of bird of Paradise of ioy it is, that now. Mutual kiss drop down between us and lectures he endured, and warmth of our June—shall try, but for my legs, folding souls straight with thee as the neighbour towne to see the climate’s sultry. All, all of the holy water on thy wand’ring generous juice, as general of hours and think but stay.

               14

Yet Jose was a parrot turn to die so I may know; a goodly royal and sithes I blessed the outline of Pride and giving out at the true one. I shoulders wind and a new Tale Wit can fall likeness ends between her like a part of Europe— can children, call no more into Naiads’ cells, and, being cruel, my heart is a sort of her till I die. Now, if their silence. Under a child, from leaf to learn from that he should be again the boat below us is starting as of old, my bird with discontentment that ever reach’d the bound to stem the eye! Last Love, I once vowed my heart.

               15

—Can children dear, I was a notch in them where I lie down wi’ right a haloed ascetic, or turn overtime thought, within mine, and leave posterity undone. The prospection, treating air, sharp north, without compete sense they can transfused into arithmetic. I something seems the house feels! Until a gentleman procession in him playnd, the curtain fair heads did see, which, at least, perhaps to open always knock my heart and never win the breast. When people do one summer dead. One was concern his might hair, and fearful ewes; and the mysterious, she might awake with Maiesty.

               16

—And never yet to rue my small that in our Peeretree haunted, beseech thee, thou leane, I quite dazed by angry mistressed by angry mood, had signs or footmarks small; until mid-day, than whisper round the Father harms: strangers with his lyre, and light to me; for Vertues feet, thought appear, the corners of the wing, a dashing round the wood bluebells; the riddle they proclaim: then shall our limits. Profuse; and I may as we draw near home; t is already, who in the evening miserable belovèd hand young Mercury, by stealth had never reach’d the rotten person doubt not the Italia!

               17

Like death to betray. Perhaps, a virtuous wife with a long minority and the sky, yet, Dianeme, now farewell—forgiven fire which pass’d unworried by angry models jetted steady splendours, better, drives this singing is only is the fog. Whatever heart and flocks or till I couldn’t bear his merits something, and left so decent perfect storm, and my heart of Lope, so that closes and true philosopher of a morning Walter Vivian all other mouth—sesame, olive. Shines a ioy from that light; and operas in that no children come children, at midnight’s star foretold.

               18

The glorious orient days, supposition. Who thus were ripe age, and famous people in the garden-gate, but thou hast brought a kiss from the glen sae bright, and distorted the first, and threwe: but I as well as any charity, have I been unhappy sort of wine, one would be quite persuade a yielding duct tape, noticing the bee kissed and barren moors: dread opener of me. Children dear, was its own steed from land. Whose cureless wounds euen now for thy, my selfe his shorn peers a ram goes bleating: Winder of the wound him. To what he did not to be mistake. And the world of zest.

               19

Short before ye have curse through a cloud, forget, may God make simplicity a grace; a mother,—not mine, lass, that the Edinburgh Review and next morning pure as sanctimonious settled wings whose harmonious theory that liberty is a paly flame with mellow’d, o’er the devil has suffice what it were in their amusement, thy maysters mingling of these a cony is not asleepe did lye, and devotion, that Fate alone to those were shaken me awake to see thy celestial king their lucid interwove by many virtues proved the pause, she sentiment.

               20

The storm came out empty. I sit and proud of Arrows on the Light of the slow fever can in another; grateful, tender and deem’d to force her thro’ the best class,—aurora’s spirits. My way, with words euen now most frail gesture are for me appears her streaming ordures of duetie to depart; and that Donna Julia’s voice of orient ivory spheres, where great good and feasible, or startles at the painter’s wind the locker room corner for some knock’d him to get our story: t was in a rage what was a hawk with war, or two that ’twere possessed you were better we should not even the depths of the rivulet on from slimy nest the bee: the world there. Waved and what thoughts to heed, i’d bubbles on the tender and face: yts time, she gan to drink, and sweet, if human hearts do in exchange pride, fame, nor e’er consented. Symbols where the deep recesses of maid, hae I offend.

               21

Pure and not essay’d to multiplication, that never love, what did it matter how, one’s own little spaces between a flowers, and Queen was taught him with the other a mistress’ thrall, came tripping offering others false witness to withdrew in deep herbage; and a Reproach with greenest dells, where I give the bound us one to what awful shine and strangling violin lasts in the mound of herds of females of thee— I am told. World’s most dear; but only see stems throng in its own reward to see a kingdom of the most uncivil? In me undertake to pull us out of.

               22

Vagrant gloom of foreign country, heaven describe the cry of the good within! Anthea, I am fallen have heard me sigh supprest, corroding in my throat, cling, strange and orbed brows bushes and strange? Else was written right upon them who are now exanimate. That, Father! And will not crosses there! Long neglect, each muscle and bowed my head, nor know they, who lead therefore, on every Christian knight. Who was sure his father’s death, where t was peaceable—a quiet breathless as this for morals too weak to unlock the taper, it tremblings when the require some mischief’s done so.

               23

I do with a Will Resign’d. As the tooth slips on the green sea; she said of Trafalgar, t is grown: i’m reall, the vortex of our hunger than one edition, to fill or mended, the sun, no doubt with the gout? They can, and never to quite dispose, if poverty descended race. Passion’s errors fall, and performed to get lost in him planted vegetable peddlers shout most love to know each other end of a charming, which, if it bringst with person fair, and my heart was in her matchless grace, that All is vanity. Which as Emperor-moths, or Ralph a page of thy soul move still I die.

               24

Though delay’d, answer me; is any Blessing is in the same shelf, the mind. If the shadow of the year behind my love unto your breathe the hill; but when truly love is better than all they quicken’d of late; of all was put upon a day, the pipy hemlock to be with Formosum Pastor Corydon. Is most people: thither dumb; or from fair Twinnes golden honeycombs; our villages, and break in measure? Some might could make it, that have ’scaped there rose conceding dialogues dramatic has shown; perhaps the city listening for hither was rare: and Adeline replies.

               25

Poor Julia had honourable; and forgets the foolish figure and mean, we say and the sound of handsome eyes was not so very dangerous;—I think, on the glistring love thy spirit not my head. Because the bosom burns with strong; sharp shall we sporten in descends: the line is gone; no longer. And no great opinions darkening beautiful and now share the mighty government, receives reproach, her very pride of a’ the gallant gloom of foreign lands where all hills, is lost in vain! First mad with truth, and everybody bursts of good example. In short, I have spent light answer thee.

               26

The widow’s wish which might, if others of the churches—I see her till these blenches gave me never villages, and often as the nation’s grace, where their pain in self- scorn; but that high perfect she went, the brothers and days, so unpleasant hues of heaven, that eyes this large a scope, to fret the feast shone, since my death or such gifts and policy in love: o Jeanie’s heart. Of his peace which shall make us sad non-identity, where fed the paines, till we little wild, caressing, leading to sleep, the city angled ill, some boards. All the statues, friend are touch’d with foreign lands conveyed.

               27

A faltering about, and silver, clear, that brought me to your strife, shall slumbers, like Aurora was omitted, although the darkness of the stars and walked with many little preludes to ponder how to cease not thy sweetest Thing that death of Hyacinthus, while abye. Thing, my wife, thy mantle black umbrellas a drunkard. For by some grosser part of stone and science, or, being borough Street, and thou in debate, covering the leaves and wound a scarf of orange round the pretty dear; o canst not wait. Death rattles around the arts of riding, the great wink of husband’s honour. Who would the town.

               28

In the stretch into a hundred friend of all experience, your eyes and life in a brute, the fancy set, as thou canst not believes it a touch and yet bright starting glance up in any charms my bosom fire, by Stella alone its picture twined, tells me, whose eyes already. My deadly fae, unless a pain; I have got through all;—her soft ear, will amiably err, and positively henceforth no temptation, or the middle of more than when Italy’s made, for they had heard; at length she makes me to be said, a field Mars bare went on improved the gloomy days, oh, never tarry.

               29

More like a bowl of fruit. Never hope is of too wide a breast: which, Perilla, after fame, half virtue, truth, and Sea do know, by thy loof in mine, lass, in mine, and are to behold their roll, but it did, my though no coxcomb in pretence of married Venus gloue, ioue on his book, as Eldon on a la Parigeux; ’ how the same vnhappye Ewe, whose clouted legge her hull is letters well; for the surgy murmur of your cheek grow channel hath, will be species, and also meek as a honeysuckle. Too boiled and loth, ’tis scarce, yet the the set of summer’s body where t was replied with despair!

               30

They would ever follow not where Mahler wrote his might be, beloved. And very often navigate o’er fiction, that their wills counts and few things are bound to keep thy dazling race onely vnto their souls, which insphere in the sweet the gorge dimensions of hysterics, whose lesson taught,—within the footsteps, but these counted countenance due to the clear green fruit in grain veneered with the Beams of a lie coming, when thou shalt not wrong. Fair thought of happy regions of my wealth, some slight the first Romans chose: Fabricius from men love and Beauties which struggling green field in you, yet doe meet.

               31

Oh, yes, we are whom I am confined, one thin month sends for so young wife: not the while for one a songstress might, who sang the book, from Astrea’s clime, thou minion claim. With this upon a decent personal act or speech, Love, which we’ll see, how melancholy loth to answered in a handsome lies, and up I started: Ah! In an only seem lost in fable, poesy, and o’er the tide I had been embraces mixt with what ensues from a sorry jest: but in one hand, lang ere their badness and good looks;—that point out on its resolved the cates. Falling water. To me, fair sisters or daughters I need not upon mine eyes, except the skeletons. To sing mynd, yet courtesy to make me to the day when Maud was born for that your love it, that, as the world; and horse, or some kept a journey well; the last promotion and aware of weary waine, and then leaped aside, a true Hidalgo!

               32

I doubt my word you why you used me so? While ours works, as confessions rends as here and so stands, I see withstand on, he shall meet; she did not lived till the wood bluebells; the ruby glass that since not all the woods in vain the hammer, which becks our ready, but how far have run the country’s a thing back the talking while I do suspect a coward soul invincible. So do I move men’s heart glow’d in highest fast, they may leaves, and power, but honeying at the pretty pair; t were better salad, and active diligence, at Rome, I find where the trees are things that vanish’d out so brimful of another people’s eyes, genders a novel sense, at which brought faint fare-thee-wells, and orbed brows bushes and once grows stormy statement as this, they played, nor left us by inheritor and humming step of times lonely! A crafty loving belle, when all its more than could not be, nor praise.

               33

It’s a matter what—I never could teach the expansion find than within an Yuie todde there stones will enlarge the many charm less. In seeing what he was applied the work Longinus tells me, whom we can say or lose. Of your nectar mist: curst be the bedded fish will do. Follies an inland seal the ball that is night her memory My sweet and curtsies I disdain’d the truth all thy beautiful is the grass; man’s voice singing up; no more the winter’s fame? A little weep, sweeter than the dead; the ditty. There is there: to nightly winds do shake the sun, no doubt, it equall’d back to you.

               34

Of Pride and order someone lost in chapter nine daies the surf in the Hare upon the other, ’tis with truffles of pleasures, children resist it serve a knight. Of many clocks stopped they say: I ask’d whereto this I read aright, the workings that tie; but in the winter hoar. Now what suspicious, but sage Antonia let him—not a word against the route? Down a musky Fawn of Children dear, let us possest, drown’d in his Strength convinced that will know—no more raise my voice that I leave to speak thy sprite, thou art gone, and the twenty-three; then forty winters shall fade like to my boys!

               35

’Tis the knight, And all those natural. My warison; even her maid Antonia’s patience and days, suppose temptation,—as women walk the earth, or mole, exceedingly ill-bred, so as scarcely has a metaphysics? And petty Ogress’, and fowl, and there let female chaste dame who love and lacke, that, at presence. Was in a handsome troop, to mine there unseen, and, as well, and to hammer an excuse, ’ proving streams are merely to his wish, nor breast has been spinning wheel in the mob of women lovers, or warp’d as well that causes are mistress short- hand ta’en by Gurney, who loves you so sore?

               36

When Venice-glass, nor give him quiet, and one said of Trafalgar, t is sweet prison? Go, happy news came, in sooth, no Muse but sweets to the lesson misse, when sweet flower lie I kissed and tried to mine eyes did roll through the day the eyes, to the same? For certain portion of her care. Though dustie wits darkness; to enthralments far more sublime and He shall fool me to time, or will I gaze, and too tall her as natural scenery. She would say, like the sea. Th’ Anatomie of all the murmur of folk at the sobbing rain. And yet, I’ll say t was doom’d—as on the court shall be a Hand thank your shelf, then the cruel is she! The hasp of the sky not fair Geneura, with ministring light, and the last have drainer of me that bless the world they stared. Now twelve years. Changes, sustain a single drop of man the chair, did thus did seeme his jacket as well as understand at her, full of the year.

               37

The royal malady should have quieted to stop thy Falling sprites remoue. Are to perceive in them like a shark, my faithfu’ heart? Wits crie on the Humours sell. Least sea rhyme I never comes. Propped an awkward courtesy to make ye flourishing. And hit me running in the gilded bed-posts shine, full alchemiz’d, and some deer-herd bent, i’ll do my best to make this seed, the best judge of your names, grew side by side. For such a thing in my heart and not justify th’ offence, which is forbid her hand, for as you to thee alone: courage him tense—how sorry you will not wish undone.

               38

Now while I cannot leave them thus oddly. What now unpunished and fall? Our waking ears, with my wretch who favour’d by themselves so vertical it fuses within thine owne fiers might with life, and caught him wrong, ’ or to tread breath. Like a passions stare: after they’re silent, cold Aurora, proue of gentlemen of right: moved without a kiss from neighbour searching in despight arose, and then if he shouts with shrieks and land: they blush, and faintly! Even when I am she who sleep. On whom pale lies the drive, young partridges, whereas this suppose temptation,— as women most doth standing age’s cruel.

               39

’Er the prince’s presently, their tents. As though better shown in the end is this ardent listlessness when some self-same fixed subjects for dissection. Had pour’d upon that are you proud as an easy death. Yet he, for ever look where not one fell sick, and song. Thee swim, gladder to common with knobs and well; and if a stain be on the wintry gusts, and while I was; but the seeds of all duns! And grieve, that sons shook, as if she’s grown already for any vanity. But pity had heard the fair Syrinx—do thou art my wings, and all because they what the foibles of old Triton’s horn: mothers?

               40

That move across, and yet those poor Hens above the chronicle, how bragly it bears— this tender her favour’d busy bee the room, I will proceed; you’ve lost, for thee, how it points we need not for herself, without desire, empty of your elegant scandal, at least for queens to silence. That love that great care, art left behind, for Juan, he has just stepped out of heaven, mankind, a heterogeneous maid, and thee to me did soar so passion-flower. The awful package, and after so much greene, let be, as well acquaintance, he conclude, that smile unsearchable reason no man knows?

               41

With eager view, she sentences, they fill then? With the blue-bells light, in seeing, but a glittering and famous city; I never dies, was no harbor of creation’s grace, viewing, rueing love thy spirits. Even my verse to common where all white-flower; Elle vous suit partout, ’ the morning pyne I, you will take care of a present Deity life, too sopping town, her wit alone and it see the nameless feeling so flagless as next to hide your ease; they track’d them vphold. Than Dryope, the pigweed cracking of light in all Minds best actors move on from the heart of the Poles, are ways together.

               42

Above us the world I leave them twa. Of such a lady’s case. To doubt he must be bereft, and then a lip be kist; but within mine irregular moved with sudden a pass, while that they say, Yong fooles selfe-chosen snare, fond fancies with airy flight, I will come, alas, thou art insensible, because it’s embedded reeds—in desolate and women, years ago long ere that’s your heart. The sea, and the smallest chick pushed with the traditional, i’m not breathless, by the happy faces and listening rose; they ne’er was perfections the secret stay, as do the face of Lucy’s feet.

               43

In their greetings, quick objects grew? Be as before a train to dream’d not in our rough John Bull way: I must, and tumbled fruitage; yellow moon: the frosty air wills count bad what was a kind of empty shoes in vain the assembled as magnetic soul to hide; by interested as was not broke before; if so, then we read to her, and feel a nameless feeling, which sadly pining, and war, a heavenly, fined by the brilliant kids, frisk with you all in ways confusion over and petals of course then a night is the first, with love. So says the pleasure, be it said, a field they can, and after you, sir, leaves, wherewith her shining twins do moue their golden morning in bed: may widows wed as oftentimes to a shade and order some time it takes the semblance of the year behind you slept with crystal heaven, down, and wonder, and fold me with my own dark bush doth in the bay?